RuPaul was born in 1960 in San Diego, California then later moved to Atlanta, Georgia with his sister after his parents divorced. He was always starstruck by his idol Dianna Ross and began cross dressing in his sister's clothes to try an emulate his hero. He attended school at the Northside School of Performing Arts but did not graduate.
To launch his career RuPaul landed himself on The American Music Show in 1982. He performed constantly on the show with his band RuPaul and the U-Hauls. The band later broke up but RuPaul's new band Wee Wee Pole performed around Atlanta while RuPaul started his acting career. He starred in countless low budget movies and started selling booklets and postcards with his face on them. To further launch his career RuPaul left Georgia to head to New York in the 1980's. Ru had become close friends with Lady Bunny, the founder of Wigstock, and started performing in full drag at the New York City festival. This helped RuPaul earn the title of Queen of New York.
After performing at Wigstock RuPaul landed a record deal and launched his first album Supermodel of the World. On the album was the song "Supermodel (You better work)" which reached the 2 in the club charts and the top 50 in the pop charts. Later he sang a cover of "Don't go Breaking my Heart" with Elton John that made the top 10 in the U.K. charts. His success in music did not stop him from achieving his other dreams.
In 1994 RuPaul acted in Crooklyn by Spike Lee. In 1995 RuPaul starred in Sister Sister and In the House on TV and The Brady Bunch Movie, Too Wong Fu Thanks for Everything, Blue in the Face, and Julie Newmar on the big screen while publishing his autobiography Lettin' It All Hang Out. He launched his show The RuPaul Show and became a model for MAC cosmetics by 1998.
RuPaul continued releasing music throughout his career. He has released eleven studio albums, two soundtrack albums, six compilation albums, three remix albums, and one extended play. In 2009 he launched his hit show RuPaul's Drag Raceand in 2016 RuPaul launched his show Gay for Play. In 2018 he received a star on the Hollywood walk of fame. He is the first ever drag queen to receive a star.