RuPaul’s Drag Race’s million-dollar friendship – how RuPaul and Michelle Visage went from 80s New York club scene kids to LGBT icons and international reality TV royalty

Jan 23 , 2021

RuPaul and best friend Michelle Visage go way back to the 1980s. Photos: @michellevisage/Twitter, @rupaul/Instagram

Michelle Visage performed at New York’s The Love Ball in 1989 which is said to have inspired Madonna’s Vogue

The BFF co-hosted VH1’s The RuPaul Show that once featured Diana Ross – now she’s a regular fixture of Werq The World and more

RuPaul is one of the most-famous and successful drag queens in the world thanks to the international RuPaul’s Drag Race franchise, but he didn’t do it alone. Since the 80s, best friend and Drag Race judge Michelle Visage has been right by his side, and the pair have become inseparable both on and off screen.

Michelle Visage and RuPaul are fast friends. Photo: Getty Images

Visage, who is married to husband, David Case, and has two daughters, Lillie and Lola, initially became famous as a member of the girl band Seduction in the early 90s. Since then her fame has catapulted into icon status in the LGBTQ+ community due to her endless support and activism – and of course, her RuPaul’s Drag Race judging role alongside her best friend.

When your BFF game is so strong you can rock matching outfits. Photo: @ensemblemagazinenz/Instagram

“We can complete each other’s sentences, we get exactly what each other are saying,” Visage told ET Canada of her friendship with Ru. “Everybody has that one friend where you look at them and they know what you’re thinking.”

Here’s how Ru, 60, and Visage, 52, went from being party pals to one of the most-lucrative friendship duos in showbiz ‘herstory’.

How it all began

Ru and Michelle in the early days of their friendship. Photo: @michellevisage/Twitter

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