RuPaul was born in San Diego, California TO Ernestine Charles and Irving Charles.
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When his parents divorced in 1967, he and his three sisters lived with their mother, a practising Seventh-day Adventist. He was raised in the Catholic faith and attended Patrick Henry High School.
At 15, RuPaul and his sister Renetta moved to study performing arts in Atlanta, Georgia. In the ensuing years, RuPaul struggled as a musician and filmmaker during the 1980s, when he worked at Atlanta’s famed Plaza Theatre.
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RuPaul is considered the most commercially successful drag queen in the United States, with Fortune nothing him as “easily the world’s most famous drag queen”. For his work on RuPaul’s Drag Race, he has received 12 Primetime Emmy Awards, becoming the most-awarded person of colour in Primetime Emmy.
In 2022, he won the Tony Award for Best Musical for serving as a producer on the Broadway musical A Strange Loop. He also voices himself as the announcer on The Tiny Chef Show.
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