RuPaul: This show was brought to you by Audible, Audible is the world’s leading provider of audio books with over 150,000 titles to choose from. Baby you better get on over there it’s great, you can get a free audio book and a 30 day trial just by going to AudiblePodcast.com/RuPaul. That’s right you get a free audiobook and a 30 day free trial at AudiblePodcast.com/RuPaul. Now please support them since they support us. Hello everyone it is What’s The Tee with Michelle Visage.
Michelle Visage: Hi.
RuPaul: We’ve got lots of stuff to talk about but I want to just talk about my trip to Vegas this week.
Michelle Visage: And you went with Georgie.
RuPaul: I went with Georgie and we went to see Olivia Newton-John at the Flamingo.
Michelle Visage: I saw a picture of you with her which was presh.
RuPaul: Did you just say presh?
Michelle Visage: It was so presh.
RuPaul: I love that, I’m going to steal that it’s so good. Well just the whole idea of shortening any word.
Michelle Visage: Offish.
RuPaul: Offish officially you know. That’s a whole other topic because I love the idea of having fun with words, my friend Tommy, his new catch all phrase for everything is “Well you can blame Obama for that.”.
Michelle Visage: My mother in law actually blames Obama for everything.
RuPaul: I got it wrong it’s “Well you can thank Obama for that.”.
Michelle Visage: Same thing, more sarcasm.
RuPaul: It’s just hilarious it’s fun, but we went to see Olivia on Friday night and they put us up at the Flamingo, I had never stayed at the Flamingo Bugsy Siegel hotel.
Michelle Visage: Was everything pink?
RuPaul: Pretty much.
Michelle Visage: That makes me so happy.
RuPaul: Instead of a red carpet they had a pink carpet, Olivia was fantastic.
Michelle Visage: How was her voice has it held up?
RuPaul: It has held up it’s even better, she’s one of those ones some of them like Cher and…
Michelle Visage: Donna Summer.
RuPaul: They all got better as time went on and Olivia is one of them. We went to see Elton John on Saturday night at Caesars.
Michelle Visage: You had quite a weekend! RuPaul: We sure did and you know, I love Vegas and I hate Vegas at the same time, but we know how to do Vegas. Usually we will stay at The Mandarin Oriental, I know that’s probably not PC.
Michelle Visage: I’ve never even heard of it.
RuPaul: Well that’s what they call their hotel it’s called The Mandarin Oriental, it’s not kosher to say Oriental.
Michelle Visage: No it’s not kosher to say oriental when you’re talking about anything other than food or a rug. You don’t call people oriental, you call people Asians.
RuPaul: Well they are from the orient though.
Michelle Visage: Correct but don’t even get me started on all that bullshankery.
RuPaul: We stayed at The Mandarin Oriental because…
Michelle Visage: I think they should drop the name and just call it Mandarin.
RuPaul: Are you offended?
Michelle Visage: Ooo Mandarin.
RuPaul: Girl don’t get me in trouble up in here. So they put us up at the Flamingo because we were guests of Olivia and I got to meet Marie Osmond was there.
Michelle Visage: Was she?
RuPaul: She looked gorgeous.
Michelle Visage: Were you able to recognize her?
RuPaul: She looked gorgeous.
Michelle Visage: Gorgeous – but not like Marie Osmond.
RuPaul: No she looked like Marie Osmond, she looked like todays version of Marie Osmond, she looked fabulous.
Michelle Visage: So she loosened up a little bit?
RuPaul: You know you are gunning for trouble girl.
Michelle Visage: I’m telling it like it is Ru.
RuPaul: A lot of people think they’re telling it like it is.
Michelle Visage: I have no problem with people getting faceless, but the last time I saw Marie I was literally and I've always thought she was drop dead gorgeous and I still do think she’s gorgeous, but when she first got her lift she did not look like herself.
RuPaul: Is it a lift or is it just filler?
Michelle Visage: I think it’s a lift. RuPaul: Well she’s got the hair coming out, I couldn’t see the sides.
Michelle Visage: You can’t tell because she’s got so much gorgeous hair, mind you she still looks gorgeous but when I saw her I even posted it on the WIW Report, it didn’t even look like her. But you know sometimes they just need to loosen up and it’s like Raquel Welch, wow.
RuPaul: Gorgeous.
Michelle Visage: I wasn’t meaning to be shady.
RuPaul: It’s not being shady we both love some classic surgery, I cannot wait to have my mug snatched.
Michelle Visage: Are you going to?
RuPaul: Yanked.
Michelle Visage: I don’t think you will.
RuPaul: Before we dive in to facelifts let’s take a moment to talk about Squarespace. Now they’re the all in one platform that makes it fast and easy to create your own professional website. I used Squarespace to build RuPaulPodcast.com and baby it took two hours to make it, and it looks better than if I had paid a web designer. That’s right, Squarespace makes it easy to cover all your needs and looks amazing. All of their plans even include free ecommerce, start with the free trial at Squarespace.com/RuPaul with no credit card required. When you’re ready to purchase a plan, get 10% off with the offer code ‘Ru’. Squarepsace.com offer code ‘Ru’. Now we’re going to talk about tapes but we’re going to talk about it in the next show though right?
Michelle Visage: Yes or we can talk about it here.
RuPaul: Well tapes is a temporary facelift and we can talk about that and some people already know, but I’m a big fan of tapes. If you’ve ever seen RuPaul’s Drag Race you’ll know that I’m a big fan of tapes.
Michelle Visage: That’s right Ru doesn’t move her [5:57]
RuPaul: Don’t say that don’t tell them that.
Michelle Visage: Well here’s the thing, I’m still a fan of the Croydon facelift.
RuPaul: The who?
Michelle Visage: The Croydon facelift, it’s pulling your hair so tightly, I haven’t moved on to tapes but I feel like now is the time to start.
RuPaul: What did you call that facelift?
Michelle Visage: Croydon, I think it’s a place in England.
RuPaul: Croydon?
Michelle Visage: Croydon facelift that started the whole kind of trend, I think it was like a chav thing however they say it. That stands for council house and violent, it’s like our version of ghetto white trash.
RuPaul: The projects. Michelle Visage: Yes but I think it’s really fabulous, the chav look everything is Burberry, pony tails and lip liner. It kind of is my look.
RuPaul: I love that.
Michelle Visage: Yes it’s everything that you would love.
RuPaul: Well now okay because you know that Marlene Dietrich used to have a braid around her head, and then she would yank and she would tie string to that braid in her hair and yank everything back.
Michelle Visage: You realize how much hair you’re losing every time you do that.
RuPaul: Who cares? But you are tight, you are looking smooth and gorgeous.
Michelle Visage: That’s the idea of the Croydon facelift, so that’s the step you do before you start moving on to tapes, and after tapes of course we’re talking surgery. But if I’m already doing the Croydon facelift, I want to move on to tapes but in order to do tapes you kind of have to hide it under your hair don’t you?
RuPaul: Yes.
Michelle Visage: Gaga is the queen of tapes.
RuPaul: Sure listen, tapes have been around forever I think since Shakespeare and things of that nature. There’s nothing new under the sun kids.
Michelle Visage: Croydon facelift sometimes known as council house facelift or in Northern Ireland a Millie facelift, is a particular hairstyle worn by woman where it’s pulled back and tied in a bun or ponytail really tightly, and the supposed result is that the skin of the forehead and face are pulled up and back giving the results of a facelift. Hence every look that I wear on RuPaul’s Drag Race.
RuPaul: You know the thing about a man and a face lift, it’s difficult.
Michelle Visage: Agreed that’s why I don’t believe you’ll ever do it.
RuPaul: I will do it.
Michelle Visage: I don’t think you will.
RuPaul: I’m going to get my face yanked.
Michelle Visage: I don’t think you will.
RuPaul: The problem is for a man, you either have to be in drag all the time that’s why I always have a problem with when men who have a weave, that’s like some synthetic or have a wig on with no foundation or no false eyelashes. Because it doesn’t look complete, if you’re going to have fake hair in the day time darling.
Michelle Visage: You have to be in drag.
RuPaul: You have to be in full drag and that’s a problem with men and facelifts, is that you have to either be painted, beat down. Michelle Visage: Have you ever seen a man with a good facelift?
RuPaul: I have.
Michelle Visage: Who?
RuPaul: I’m not going to name any names.
Michelle Visage: No celebrities? You’re not going to name one like Michael Douglas?
RuPaul: Well he doesn’t hide the fact he’s had two, he doesn’t hide the fact.
Michelle Visage: Or Regis is another one that doesn’t hide it.
RuPaul: He just doesn’t look like he’s had a facelift.
Michelle Visage: He’s had like three.
RuPaul: It’s not like he’s got that yanked look and I’ve got to be honest I love that yanked look.
Michelle Visage: I know you do.
RuPaul: Do you remember when Burt Reynolds had the second or third? It was really tight and he looked Asian.
Michelle Visage: Not oriental.
RuPaul: He looked Asian, I thought he was so beautiful. I always thought he was gorgeous.
Michelle Visage: First of all, how could you not? I can watch Best Little Whorehouse in Texas over and over just to see that gorgeous Burt Reynolds and his butt.
RuPaul: He’s in those bikinis in that, oh my god a lot of the 70s movies like Hooper he’s got these tight jeans on and everybody has these tight jeans on, you could see everything.
Michelle Visage: You could see his [9:59].
RuPaul: It’s crazy I love that.
Michelle Visage: Yes girl me too.
RuPaul: I worked with a man who’s very famous in a movie that nobody saw. I don’t want to say it because I don’t want to get sued.
Michelle Visage: I’m not going to make you say it, but what’s your point?
RuPaul: If it’s the truth can you get sued?
Michelle Visage: You’re not slandering him you’re stating a fact.
RuPaul: I saw the scars, he was on a sitcom for a long time and we did a movie together in Canada, was it Vancouver or Toronto? I think it was Toronto.
Michelle Visage: I know the movie. RuPaul: Oh you do?
Michelle Visage: I’m not going to say anything.
RuPaul: It wasn’t till we did the table reading that I went “Oh my god you’ve been yanked!”.
Michelle Visage: “You’ve been lifted!”.
RuPaul: But he only had the mid facelift, he didn’t have the full yank.
Michelle Visage: Well the full yank I think is what gives it away, for me what I’m starting to see go is the jawline.
RuPaul: Oh that’s the story of my life.
Michelle Visage: The jawline is going first.
RuPaul: What was the Nora Ephron book?
Michelle Visage: She had a few didn’t she?
RuPaul: Yes but the second to last one was “I Feel Bad About My Neck”.
Michelle Visage: Oh I love her, what a genius.
RuPaul: Although she did ruin Bewitched for me.
Michelle Visage: Oh the movie?
RuPaul: She did that, but anyway.
Michelle Visage: We can forgive her for all the good she’s done.
RuPaul: She gave us Sleepless in Seattle and she gave us Heartburn with those actors, Meryl Streep is it Dustin Hoffman or the other one? It was Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson in Heartburn?
Michelle Visage: I saw it once and I don’t remember, in my head it’s Sally Field but that’s Soapdish so I’m going for something else here.
RuPaul: So yes starting to worry about my neck.
Michelle Visage: That’s the things where I look at myself, I said to my friend Leah “Well maybe I’ll just lose weight.” And she goes “It’s going to get worse you idiot.”. I guess you don’t think that when you lose weight the skin just hangs because there’s nothing there to make it plump. So I start thinking well maybe I should start taping, I’ve never done it but I know that taping can really screw up your skin too right?
RuPaul: Well your skin has to be tough, we’re talking about tapes but we were going to talk about tapes in the next show.
Michelle Visage: Well we can get back to it, we’ll just do tapes here because we’re on the subject.
RuPaul: Okay the thing is that tapes, I’ve been doing tapes for years. I’m actually a tape addict and I’m thinking of starting a 12 step program for tapes, because I want to tape everything. Michelle Visage: But you use tape everywhere on your body.
RuPaul: I want to tape everything.
Michelle Visage: Everywhere, you should own stock in 3M.
RuPaul: It’s true. Okay the tapes are called Mark Traynor tapes.
Michelle Visage: Is that the only one?
RuPaul: No they have other ones but those are the ones that I use and they’re really good. What I do is I get the Mark Traynor tapes and I think you can get them at Alconeco.com, it’s an intricate system of pulleys and weights which again is the story of my life.
Michelle Visage: Now can you put them on yourself or does Matthew Anderson put them on?
RuPaul: No I do put them on myself and what I do is I take the tapes, take the backing off then I use tupay tape, this really strong toupee tape that I get at Bitz-n-Pieces. Bitz-n-Pieces is the company that has done most of my lace front wigs, I’ve been going there for 20 years.
Michelle Visage: Barry Hendrickson?
RuPaul: Yes, right now it’s located at Columbus Circle in New York.
Michelle Visage: It used to be Columbus Avenue.
RuPaul: Yes now he’s at Columbus Circle above that Starbucks right next to the Time Warner building, is that 66th?
Michelle Visage: Columbus Circle is 59th, but the last time Barry did all my hair on the Soul System cover with the dreads and all that stuff, that was always Barry.
RuPaul: I have some wigs that are like 20 years old.
Michelle Visage: Me too, I still have those hairpieces those dreads, maybe I’ll bust them out for season seven. But they won’t match a damn thing because they’re blonde but that never stopped me before.
RuPaul: I get the toupee tapes from Barry Hendrickson.
Michelle Visage: But you can get toupee tape anywhere.
RuPaul: He has a brand that I’ve never found anywhere else that is so strong, what I do is I take this toupee tape, take the adhesive off it because toupee tape is basically double stick tape that’s really strong.
Michelle Visage: Because it’s meant to withstand windstorms.
RuPaul: And sweat, everything. So I adhere the toupee tape to the Mark Traynor tape, then I cut it around the edges.
Michelle Visage: Girl this is an arts and crafts project.
RuPaul: It really is, I should do a YouTube video for it. Michelle Visage: So wait, does the Mark Traynor tape come with their own adhesive?
RuPaul: They have an adhesive but you know I mean please.
Michelle Visage: So you have to take the toupee tape and replace the one that the Mark Traynor tape comes with.
RuPaul: Right, you take the Mark Traynor tape to the toupee tape and then I cut the edges off the tape so they’re sort of rounded. Again Barry Hendrickson has this like alcohol thing that you put on your skin that takes all the oil off.
Michelle Visage: So it won’t slide.
RuPaul: So it doesn’t slide and you can’t perspire underneath the tape.
Michelle Visage: You don’t sweat anyway.
RuPaul: Oh honey.
Michelle Visage: Most of the time we don’t because we’re working in a meat locker.
RuPaul: And that’s why we’re in a meat locker because I sweat, honey I sweat like the late great Whitney Houston. I am telling no lie, I sweat like the late great Sassy Sarah Vaughan honey.
Michelle Visage: My nipples are so hard the entire time we’re shooting because it’s so cold that you could hang coats on my nipples.
RuPaul: It’s freezing, listen I’m wearing a wig, I’ve got it all on, I’ve got the friggin living room couch is basically what I have on my body. So yes it has to be cold, there’s the stuff you put down before you put the tapes on to take everything off your skin and it’s an antiperspirant also. I put them here right where my, what is this?
Michelle Visage: Like your temple.
RuPaul: It’s right where my cheekbone ends, right near my ear I put a tape there and I put one on the opposite side. Then I put one under my ear.
Michelle Visage: Okay, I would never know. It’s so gorgeous though the outcome is so gorgeous.
RuPaul: I love it. I put it on before I put my makeup on.
Michelle Visage: So you put your makeup over it so it blends?
RuPaul: I put the makeup over it and then we attach the pulleys which are like rubber bands, we attach those before the wig goes on and then I look around and I’m like “Oh! There she is.”.
Michelle Visage: The thing is I’m not even there yet, and it takes me just as long when people say “How long does it take you to get in drag as opposed to Ru?”. Honestly, you start one hour before me, that’s it, that’s sad.
RuPaul: Listen I know you and I both, we could both do it so much quicker but we have tea, we put the kettle on, we dance, we gossip, we watch a little Golden Girls. You know I eat, I take a break and Matthew goes and has a cigarette. It takes a while but honestly we could do it in an hour and a half. Michelle Visage: I think so.
RuPaul: It wouldn’t be at the level that it is but we can do it in that amount of time.
Michelle Visage: But we don’t.
RuPaul: But what were we talking about?
Michelle Visage: We were talking about tapes. The take away from this is Barry Hendrickson has the toupee glue and the cleaner.
RuPaul: It’s not glue.
Michelle Visage: I’m sorry toupee tape.
RuPaul: Before I found this toupee tape I used to use the spirit gum, I used to go down to Naimie’s here in L.A and get what’s called the KD-151.
Michelle Visage: And you didn’t like it?
RuPaul: I love it, in fact I still glue my wigs down with the KD-151 and it’s really super-duper heavy duty spirit glue.
Michelle Visage: So why did you switch?
RuPaul: You know, the toupee tape is cleaner.
Michelle Visage: For removal or the way it looks?
RuPaul: The way it looks, the removal, everything about it is just cleaner. On the skin that kind of pulling, the toupee tapes I have gotten wealths from doing.
Michelle Visage: That’s what I was wondering on your skin, you’re still pulling and using adhesive so I was thinking it’s going to leave marks.
RuPaul: Well you know what, I have put a fade cream on there to sort of take away some of the scars.
Michelle Visage: Okay so you’ve got scars girl.
RuPaul: You know the term beauty is pain and they aren’t lying, nobody is lying about that. That’s the thing about facelifts because you’re like “Okay if I as a man want a facelift and I want to look okay during the daytime.”, you’re either going to look good in drag or you look like a freak during the daytime, take your pick. For a woman, do you want a sagging jawline or do you want a scar right here?
Michelle Visage: But you can take care of it with the tape.
RuPaul: You can but what about the rest of your life?
Michelle Visage: I don’t know I’m scared to death to have a facelift.
RuPaul: What scares you about it?
Michelle Visage: It not looking right, there’s always that chance.
RuPaul: A botched facelift. Michelle Visage: We love our botched surgery too actually.
RuPaul: We love Wildenstein, we love that. Some people would say that’s a botched facelift but not me.
Michelle Visage: I think there’s only two who wouldn’t, to us it’s like we worship at her feet.
RuPaul: She looks gorgeous.
Michelle Visage: We’re not normal.
RuPaul: I guess we are not normal, but that’s the thing is that when you have a facelift there’s another race of people that you join.
Michelle Visage: Is there something wrong with ageing gracefully and not wanting to do it?
RuPaul: I think it’s a noble enterprise.
Michelle Visage: You go girl.
RuPaul: Meryl Streep does the kind of roles that she just does human, she does human beings. Someone like Goldie Hawn who looks like a 50 year old she’s not going to have a wider range of roles offered to her.
Michelle Visage: So in order to be in the game you have to join the masses.
RuPaul: You have to join the race of people who don’t age. Golden Hawn hasn’t made a movie since 2000.
Michelle Visage: But she’s been lifted.
RuPaul: She has been lifted yes absolutely.
Michelle Visage: Do you think she chooses not to do a film?
RuPaul: I think that because she looks so young, they’re not going to offer her a role, she’s not going to do an August: Osage County or whatever that movie is.
Michelle Visage: I loved that movie.
RuPaul: She’s not going to get those kinds of roles. The same with Lady CharChar, she could play high society women because that’s where she got her teeth.
Michelle Visage: Her teeth were my favorite thing in the world, my favorite teeth in the world on record are the two teeth where the front teeth go in and the teeth next to them come out.
RuPaul: Yes mine too.
Michelle Visage: Those are my favorite teeth in the world.
RuPaul: And Cher had those teeth, but to play roles of people who are rich or people that are intelligent, you have to have those teeth fixed and she had those teeth fixed. Obviously she has been yanked, she looks gorgeous but she’s not going to get those roles like August: Osage County. So that’s the thing is there are choices you have to make, either you want a sagging neck line. Michelle Visage: Nobody wants a sagging neck line.
RuPaul: But that’s life.
Michelle Visage: That’s what I’m saying, so far I’m trying to age, fighting kicking and screaming every step of the way. I don’t even have Botox in my face which is really stupid.
RuPaul: What’s wrong with you?
Michelle Visage: A lot apparently, season seven trust me I’ll be all shot up. As long as they leave this eyebrow alone I’m happy because it will get the point across.
RuPaul: You know, the longer you go without having Botox, your muscles stage a revolt and they get stronger. Like if I’ve gone more than, and I’ve only done this once, where I’ve gone more than eight months or seven months the muscles become stronger the more time between. Does that make any sense?
Michelle Visage: I understand what you’re saying, but is it true?
RuPaul: It’s absolutely true it happened to me.
Michelle Visage: God forbid.
RuPaul: It happened to me, I went a long time without Botox and then the muscles staged a revolt so then when I went to kill them I needed way more.
Michelle Visage: So it cost more money as well.
RuPaul: It cost more.
Michelle Visage: I’ve had bad Botox once, I’ve only gotten Botox probably about five or six times and each time it’s different. So I finally found a girl that I like.
RuPaul: Bad Botox?
Michelle Visage: Well I had a plastic surgeon put it on.
RuPaul: You mean surgeron.
Michelle Visage: Surgeron, in my forehead and I don’t have crazy lines, if you look at my forehead I don’t have deep lines. But the point is he put it in and my eyebrows went down for four months.
RuPaul: Yes that happens.
Michelle Visage: For me that’s blasphemy, my eyebrows are everything.
RuPaul: Well that is someone who doesn’t do it very well.
Michelle Visage: That was a plastic surgeron.
RuPaul: A plastic surgeron? Michelle Visage: A plastic surgeron, I will never be going to a plastic surgeron again. I found a nice Filipino girl, she knows what she’s doing she’s an artist and I may or may not have sent some former Drag Race queens to her.
RuPaul: They all go south of the border.
Michelle Visage: Some go a little further in the race, well they go to my girl, the other ones go to TJ.
RuPaul: Right so now how did we get on this thing, we were talking about tapes but we started with Olivia Newton-John.
Michelle Visage: Because we talked about Marie Osmond, but Olivia Newton-John sounded amazing.
RuPaul: I met her the first time on our show The RuPaul Show on VH1.
Michelle Visage: Where you beat her at Olivia Trivia.
RuPaul: That’s right and that was the L.A shows which we did in 98. I met her then and said hi to her throughout the years, and then I did a RuPaul Drive with her.
Michelle Visage: Which was fantastic, I loved that one.
RuPaul: It was good we had a good time, I drove her out to Santa Monica from Hollywood and we had a good long time.
Michelle Visage: I love the story about Olivia Newton-John having food poisoning hepatitis.
RuPaul: She had academy awards.
Michelle Visage: From eating bad fish and she had to tell everybody that she had shook their hands, touched them and whatever and they all had to go get inoculated. You would never have known it watching her.
RuPaul: Because she looked gorgeous.
Michelle Visage: Well I didn’t know anything about it until Tom Campbell from World of Wonder told me and showed me the video, of course I was a wee one and I don’t think I was interested that much, the only thing I was interested in at that point was Grease so I didn’t know the academy awards or Olivia Newton-John. What year did Grease come out in?
RuPaul: In 78.
Michelle Visage: So I was ten, I didn’t really care so much, I don’t even remember seeing it at the theater.
RuPaul: Wow.
Michelle Visage: I don’t remember seeing Grease at the theater, I remember seeing it afterwards which is weird but that’s the way it was.
RuPaul: Well she is absolutely lovely, great show. Normally I wouldn’t stay at the Flamingo, it would either be The Mandarin Oriental or The Venetian. The thing about The Mandarin Oriental is it doesn’t have a casino in it, which is so decadent. Michelle Visage: So you avoid all the smoke.
RuPaul: All the smoke, all of that madness and it’s so chic and decadent to go to Vegas and stay in a hotel that does not have a casino.
Michelle Visage: I didn’t even know that existed.
RuPaul: I think it’s the only place that doesn’t have a casino.
Michelle Visage: I’m so obsessed when we go to Vegas just to go to Caesars and just to be showgirls and in that moment, the shops and just relive those moments.
RuPaul: How genius would it be for there to be a Broadway show or Vegas show (at Vegas they have all Broadway shows) of showgirls.
Michelle Visage: Why haven’t they done it?
RuPaul: I do not know.
Michelle Visage: I know they were talking about it at one point.
RuPaul: Really? Or at least put up the show Goddess.
Michelle Visage: Why hasn’t that been done?
RuPaul: Exactly, Goddess is the show within the show of showgirls.
Michelle Visage: Maybe because Paul Verhoeven and the other one wouldn’t give up the rights?
RuPaul: Oh please, rights shmites they would love it, they would love to give up the rights for that. The next time we went to see Elton John.
Michelle Visage: To see the residency now, Elton John?
RuPaul: Yes he’s been there for five years or longer.
Michelle Visage: Welcome to the world Michelle.
RuPaul: Marie Osmond was…
Michelle Visage: She and Donnie have a show don’t they?
RuPaul: It was on their stage, Olivia has Summer Nights which is a residency there throughout the summer.
Michelle Visage: Because she was filling in for the time they were taking a hiatus.
RuPaul: Yes but what happens with these residencies is that they osculate. So it’s Diana Reeves, George Wallace and Olivia Newton-John, but at Caesars they have five. They have Jerry Seinfeld.
Michelle Visage: Jerry Seinfeld is there? Where have I been?
RuPaul: I don’t know.
Michelle Visage: I don’t go to Vegas. RuPaul: It’s Elton John, Jerry Seinfeld, Shania Twain, Celine Dion and there’s a fifth one, oh Rod Stewart.
Michelle Visage: So Selene cut down on her… she used to be at Caesars?
RuPaul: She started that whole residency thing. Britney Spears is at Planet Hollywood, there’s other residency’s but I can’t remember them.
Michelle Visage: Can I tell you my joke? When we did RuPaul’s Drag Race: Battle of the Seasons we went to Vegas and we weren’t sure how the tickets were going to do, because this is Vegas and what RuPaul is spouting now with all these people we thought “Why are they going to come see us?”. The house was packed, sold out, I get on stage so I’m opening it and I say “I’m so surprised you’re all here, it’s a sold out show, we didn’t know if you were going to come see us when you can see the best lip syncer in town right down the street.”, they’re all looking at me and I go “You know, Britney Spears.”. They loved it.
RuPaul: Where did you perform in Vegas?
Michelle Visage: We were at the House of Blues and it’s true, there are so many shows at any given time. You’re telling me people I didn’t even know were there, I did not know Rod Stewart was there, I knew Elton had done it but I thought he was gone, I didn’t know Shania, I didn’t know Jerry Seinfeld. I know Celine and I know Olivia was there because I read the WOW report and I saw RuPaul Drives, so normally I wouldn’t know these things. Vegas to me is an exhausting city, but it is the most amazing, it’s like walking in to a drag show just on the street. Glittery and gorgeous, I know that if I could keep up with it like that’s a city I would love, if I didn’t have children and have to work I would love to live in that city. But it’s exhausting.
RuPaul: Last year when we went and saw Rod Stewart at Caesars and we saw this Bee Gees tribute band at Excalibur.
Michelle Visage: Was it good or so bad?
RuPaul: It was so good, I was crying by the second song.
Michelle Visage: Yes but that’s not hard to do with you.
RuPaul: I’m a big Bee Gees fan, these were lookalikes, they spoke like them.
Michelle Visage: You’re the biggest Bee Gees fan I know on the planet.
RuPaul: I love them so much, but when I heard them start they started doing Night Fever. Even when I hear the record it just makes me…
Michelle Visage: Why?
RuPaul: Because it’s so beautiful.
Michelle Visage: Well all their songs are beautiful. Even Teri DeSario, there’s not any other songs that you hear and you know instantly that it’s a Bee Gees track.
RuPaul: I can feel myself tearing up just at the title of it, I Started a Joke which is in the movie The Fighter. Michelle Visage: What’s the movie The Fighter?
RuPaul: It’s Christian Bale, did he win the Oscar for that?
Michelle Visage: He was nominated, I think the girl won.
RuPaul: Melissa Leo won. He plays the messed up care child and she goes after him because he’s on drugs, she goes to find him because he’s got a fight or something to do. She goes to find him and she finds him and he’s on drugs and she says “You get in this car.” And she’s mad at him.
Michelle Visage: Christian Bale is her son?
RuPaul: Christian Bale is her son, and to win her over he starts singing the Bee Gees song I Started a Joke. They showed this clip in the Oscars when she won.
Michelle Visage: So now this is connected always with you?
RuPaul: Always, well it was before because I just loved the song so much. But he starts singing I Started a Joke and she’s angry at him, she’s behind the wheel of a car and she looks over and you could see her melting and he’s charming her with this song. Then she starts to sing along with him, it is gorgeous because the song is fabulous. I love the Bee Gees, actually Olivia told me that Barry is going on tour this summer.
Michelle Visage: I saw that and I couldn’t believe it, but imagine how hard it must be for him to be out there alone. Barry Gibb is one of my most favorite people on the planet, I remember my 4th grade birthday I got four or five copies of The Everlasting Love.
RuPaul: It’s a great album.
Michelle Visage: Andy Gibb was so hot, his open shirt and hairy chest. Barry is a genius.
RuPaul: He’s a genius but he’s the sexy one, he’s like disco Jesus really if disco Jesus had a huge moose knuckle.
Michelle Visage: I love Paulie Hester.
RuPaul: Do you know what a moose knuckle is?
Michelle Visage: Moose knuckle is a boy version of camel toe.
RuPaul: Yes it’s a boy version of a camel toe.
Michelle Visage: Or we know it as meaty tuck.
RuPaul: He’s got the meatiest tuck.
Michelle Visage: I have to agree and that’s probably what started your Aussiephilia, looking at that moose knuckle.
RuPaul: Probably. This band at Excalibur was called The Bee Gees Experience and it’s fabulous, we did that last year.
Michelle Visage: RuPaul stamp of approval. RuPaul: Now we’ve got other things to talk about but Vegas there’s a way to do it, if you can avoid, I hate to say this but Betty and Joe beer can. A lot of times they get in the way.
Michelle Visage: You’re not talking about just the obnoxious people, you’re talking about they’re there all gathering in one place with their cigarettes, with their alcohol and those are the people that don’t care who they push, who they offend. It’s that element, it’s all because of the gambling.
RuPaul: Exactly. George and I will go to the backstreets, from the Flamingo we went over to…
Michelle Visage: What do you mean the backstreets? Have you been in the alley again?
RuPaul: You don’t have to walk on Las Vegas Boulevard, you can go down these back streets like the street behind it.
Michelle Visage: Look I watch Cops and I know what goes down in Vegas.
RuPaul: I know why are they always in Las Vegas?
Michelle Visage: What do you mean why? Have you seen it? That’s why.
RuPaul: It’s always in Las Vegas or somewhere in Florida.
Michelle Visage: Look Florida I told you I lived in Florida for five years, you lived in Florida I think we discussed this before in a podcast. It’s a horrible for Floridians because I love the state, but I think people have the wrong idea about it. You take the United States map, you tilt it to the right and you shake and all the shit falls down to South Florida. It’s unfortunate but it’s true because like I said, I still own a home there and I love it there I love the people there, but I think transient is the answer there because it’s warm, it’s easy to get to, it’s affordable, not Palm Beach County but everywhere else. It’s that kind of thing with Florida and it’s unfortunate because I do love it so much, but that’s what happens in Florida it’s transient like Vegas. Vegas is transient, people come and think they’re going to get rich, people go to South Florida because it’s affordable and it’s like bam now we’re stuck. You walk the wrong block and you’re done in South Florida, it’s the same thing in Vegas, that’s why Cops and Forensic Files are always there because it’s easy to find someone to give you a story. You can go to Publix and find a storyline in Florida, plus they have the best buttercream around – just saying.
RuPaul: Publix buttercream?
Michelle Visage: For a cake, they sell it by the tub girl.
RuPaul: You’re kidding?
Michelle Visage: No, stay away.
RuPaul: It’s lard though right?
Michelle Visage: I don’t know what it is, it’s lard on my hands when I try to eat it but it is so good going down. That’s my desert island food, grocery store birthday cake with buttercream icing…
RuPaul: That’s your desert island food?
Michelle Visage: Yes that and Kraft macaroni and cheese, it should be green juice but no. RuPaul: I’ve actually been juicing because we’re going to start filming very soon.
Michelle Visage: And we should talk about that coming up, we should take a break. Whenever I talk about juicing because I juice every day, not steroids we’re talking about green juices in a juicer or a blender if you like a smoothie. So we’re going to talk about that coming up because people always ask questions, how do you do it? What’s the best way to do it? I’ve been doing it for years, longer than Santino got on his kick and I’m not trying to take that away from him, but there’s so much to it and at the same time it’s not as difficult as you want to make it. There’s options and we want to break it down for you.
RuPaul: Okay so we’ll talk about that next.
Michelle Visage: Awesome.
RuPaul: Alright now before we get in to juicing I’m going to take a moment to talk about Audible, you know how much I love Audible and I love audiobooks. I always listen to them before I go to bed or eat on the airplane, sometimes I listen to them in the car. But I want to talk about Audible because they have so many books to choose from and in fact you can even switch between devices on Audible, you can go from your Kindle to your iPod or iPad or any type of device that you have. The one I’m listening to right now and the one I absolutely love is David Sedaris’s Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls, it is hilarious. David Sedaris reads the book himself and he’s got the most charming voice in the world, I’ve been a fan of his for years, in fact I’ve listened to a lot of his audio books and Audible has them all. Go to Audible because they are the world’s leading provider of audiobooks with over 150,000 titles on their site, for a free audiobook and a 30 day free trial go to AudiblePodcast.com/RuPaul. Now by signing up for Audible you’ll be enjoying a great service, saving money and helping to keep this podcast free. Thanks again to Audible. Alright let’s talk about juicing, now you’ve been juicing for a long time.
Michelle Visage: Let’s talk about juice baby. Here’s the thing, the thing with juicing I started because I have an autoimmune disease and I’ve talked about it and I’m sick of talking about it. But the points is I know that you can put yourself in to remission and look, any MDs that are listening might disagree, the DOs and naturopathic doctors totally know you can.
RuPaul: It’s a thyroid condition.
Michelle Visage: The one that I have yes, the thing about autoimmune is it’s inflammatory. So if you don’t eat foods that cause the inflammation you’re going to put it in to remission eventually if you stick with it.
RuPaul: Wait, if you don’t eat food…
Michelle Visage: That causes inflammation like gluten causes inflammation, sugar causes inflammation, nightshades, egg plants, tomatoes, peppers, any seeds or nuts – all those things cause inflammation so you want to get them out of your diet and out of your body. Even if you don’t want to do that and you’re not dealing with autoimmune, but you feel like you don’t eat enough fruits and vegetables, a great way to do it is juicing. You can do smoothies and a Vitamix or Nutribullet, I’m not a fan of that because it’s so thick, it just does not work for me. All that fiber I know it fills you up and some people like it because it’s more filling, but I would rather have the purest juice, the essential enzymes, everything and it goes down so much quicker when it’s through juicing. Do you like juicing? RuPaul: When we’re filming, Natasha who works for me she does some juicing.
Michelle Visage: I see her in the kitchen doing it.
RuPaul: Yes she does it because I can’t care about cleaning up a juicer even at home. But what I do here in L.A is I go over to, there’s so many juice places.
Michelle Visage: Like Pressed Juicery let’s say.
RuPaul: Exactly, but I’ve been going over to a place at Sunset Blvd called Open Source.
Michelle Visage: Open Source Organics, I’ve been there.
RuPaul: I go and get those things.
Michelle Visage: The glass jars?
RuPaul: Yes the glass jars, I have a bunch of them right there I’m going to bring back. You do it out of the kindness of your heart.
Michelle Visage: It’s for the earth.
RuPaul: They don’t give you a refund or anything.
Michelle Visage: You don’t get your five cents.
RuPaul: I go there and I get four a day and I’ve been doing that for the past three weeks.
Michelle Visage: But have you been eating as well?
RuPaul: I do, I also get a kale salad over there and I get this raw pizza they have over there that’s fantastic. They have juices and they have shakes.
Michelle Visage: That’s the place where you can’t park.
RuPaul: It’s terrible parking but that’s the story of L.A, they’ve reconfigured the parking lot so they can get more cars in there but you can’t open the doors. You can get your car in there but you can’t open the doors, they’re doing some sub construction on the road right now.
Michelle Visage: I like that place you can also get customs, you don’t have to get that premade too. The thing is with greens, I don’t do any fruits in my green juice at all.
RuPaul: Why is that?
Michelle Visage: Because fruit is sugar and I’m trying to avoid sugar, for anybody listening that’s dealing with anything autoimmune quite honestly, you should eat your fruit and juice your vegetables. Always, because it goes in to your system slower. If you’re juicing fruit it’s literally main lining sugar in to your veins, if you don’t have a problem and you’re not dealing with a health thing you’re just doing it to get healthy or fit, go right ahead and juice an apple with it. That’s a lie I do put in half an organic lemon because lemon is cleansing. What I do every day is a beet.
RuPaul: I love beets. Michelle Visage: And beet is sugar by the way so I vary beets and I only do one, so I do half a lemon, a beet and then I do three hearts of romaine so you get a bag with three of them in there and by the way everything needs to be organic, if it’s not organic you’re main lining poison, pesticides.
RuPaul: But I love poison.
Michelle Visage: You like a different kind of poison, you like botulism poison that you get shot in your forehead. That’s something different. Then you need to soak it for 20-30 minutes in one of those veggie cleaners, that’s the only way you should be doing it. I do kale, I do romaine lettuce and I do celery like six stalks and I do two huge cucumbers as the base. Then I do ginger root, turmeric root which is so fantastic if you have anything inflammatory, joint pain, rheumatoid arthritis, so good it’s anti- inflammatory. Wholefoods has roots by roots by me if you can’t find it, get yourself a turmeric pill and take it as a supplement, it’s so good for joint pain. Then I put half a lemon, dill and coriander and it makes a big jug that will last me literally two days.
RuPaul: I went to high school with Coriander.
Michelle Visage: She’s cute, she’s green around the edges.
RuPaul: She’s very green around the edges, how often do you do this?
Michelle Visage: I make a big batch every two days, so when I make up in the morning if I don’t have broth of some sort I will have a big green juice. I get my green juice in no matter what anytime of the day, when I’m trying to behave I’ll do it twice a day and maybe forego a meal. But eating your food if you’re not doing a juice cleanse that’s supervised by a doctor, then it’s important to get in the right foods with it as well.
RuPaul: I’ve just been using it just to get my body back from the holidays.
Michelle Visage: Because it takes that long.
RuPaul: I’m doing the juices, I’m doing the salads.
Michelle Visage: You buy them right, you don’t do them yourself?
RuPaul: Yes I don’t do them myself, I get them at Open Source.
Michelle Visage: But that’s here in L.A and a lot of people can’t have that.
RuPaul: I hate that name.
Michelle Visage: Why?
RuPaul: Open Source. Open Source. Open Source.
Michelle Visage: But it’s an open sourcing organics.
RuPaul: I know but it sounds like Open Sauce.
Michelle Visage: Oh I didn’t even think about that, but that’s true I have my share of Open Sauce.
RuPaul: I don’t know why they open a business and they didn’t think about it. Michelle Visage: I didn’t think about it either.
RuPaul: You didn’t?
Michelle Visage: No.
RuPaul: Oh my god that’s the first thing I thought about Open Sauce.
Michelle Visage: That tells me a lot about you and where your mind is, but a lot of people listening that are all over the world, just go on Yelp, go on your computer, find your local organic juicery, call up and say “Do you use organics? What’s not organic?” when you go in because a lot of them have conventional and organic. Ask what they have organic and make a juice out of what they have organic.
RuPaul: I’ve got to be honest with you, I didn’t give a twot about organics.
Michelle Visage: You should.
RuPaul: I really don’t.
Michelle Visage: What you’re eating and drinking is pure poison.
RuPaul: I just want to lose weight.
Michelle Visage: Don’t listen to Ru you guys, there’s a health benefit here that really can’t be overlooked.
RuPaul: I’m not a foodie so if I’m having a shake or a juice and it’s a meal supplement, I’m like right on, I’m not a foodie.
Michelle Visage: I disagree, you are you love food.
RuPaul: Well I love certain types, I love junk food.
Michelle Visage: That’s what I’m talking about.
RuPaul: But that’s not a foodie.
Michelle Visage: What’s a foodie? Somebody that lives for a new restaurant?
RuPaul: Exactly my friend Siedah Garrett the singer, she is a foodie, she knows all the restaurants and she actually has a food club.
Michelle Visage: But she’s thin.
RuPaul: She has a food club of people from around the world and they meet in different cities, and they try out new restaurants and stuff.
Michelle Visage: If I could do that and my body responded as well as Siedah looks, then I would do that because I do love food. I love trying new things, I love going to new places especially cultural places like in Europe. When I go there and when I try the stuff that’s indicative.
RuPaul: It’s so hard to eat in Europe though because it’s bread, cheese and butter. Michelle Visage: But they are also way less with the poisons there so if you go to grocery stores you can get organics there so much cheaper, and there’s stuff like their chickens are not pumped full of steroids like ours are. Things like that, it’s much cleaner to eat in Europe than it is in this country. But go to your local juice place if you want to start it, a great juicer to buy at home the cheapest is a Breville Juice Fountain.
RuPaul: Everybody loves the Breville, that’s the one we have at the studio.
Michelle Visage: I have a Green Star which you can also do wheatgrass in, it’s like $500-600, higher end it’s not a Norwalk $2,000 juicer but it’s healthier to do your stuff in the Green Star. It’s such a pain in the ass to clean.
RuPaul: Where did you buy the Breville, you got it online?
Michelle Visage: I got it online and believe it or not mine was used once and I got it on eBay, it cost me barely anything.
RuPaul: How much?
Michelle Visage: The shipment was $25, I think I got it for like $30 it was almost more to ship it.
RuPaul: They’re expensive aren’t they?
Michelle Visage: $125-150, got to Macy’s they have them. My girlfriend that lives in Northern Ireland got hers at Argos so there’s stores everywhere that carry the Breville Juice Fountain, you don’t have to get the Juice Fountain Plus, you don’t have to get all fancy. Just make sure that it’s open enough where you can just plop an apple in because a lot of people like to juice apples when they first start, they’ll use an apple in their green juice to make it sweeter.
RuPaul: But the clean up Michelle.
Michelle Visage: It’s not difficult, are you seriously going to sit here and tell me that it’s hard on the Breville Juice Fountain?
RuPaul: I’ve never cleaned anything, but that’s what would keep me from doing it.
Michelle Visage: It’s so easy.
RuPaul: You mean to tell me it’s easy to clean a juicer?
Michelle Visage: Do you hear these nails?
RuPaul: Yes.
Michelle Visage: They don’t come off, they’re with me 24/7. I clean it with my nails it’s so easy I’m telling you, it was harder to clean my daughters baby bottles when they were babies than it is to clean this. It’s literally a brush that goes around the inside, you rinse everything off and once a week I put it through the dishwasher. Other than that I do it all by hand.
RuPaul: Have you ever used Bizrate? That site that you get to see the prices of other products, like if you go to a department store and you know a brand, you can see how much they’re selling it for and then you go on Bizrate. Michelle Visage: Is this like price matching?
RuPaul: I guess so Bizrate.com, I got my TVs that way.
Michelle Visage: It’s like Kayak when you’re looking for flights, they’ll line them all up and see who has it the cheapest. Bizrate.com.
RuPaul: So the Breville Juice Fountain.
Michelle Visage: It’s the way to go, it’s the cheapest, it’s the easiest to clean and it’s better than the other ones out there that really destroy the enzymes. It kind of keeps the quality and it keeps the integrity of the vegetables.
RuPaul: I’ll tell you for what I’m doing I really just want to lose weight.
Michelle Visage: Don’t listen to Ru.
RuPaul: What I do is I’m not eating bread, I’m not eating rice or pasta or anything like that. Then I’m not eating white sugar but I’ll have the sugar in those which is the good sugar in the fruit.
Michelle Visage: That’s fine you can eat your fruit and even when you’re avoiding sugar the way I’m supposed to be that’s any sugars not that kind of sugar, it’s talking honey or even agave. Agave is more potent than raw honey.
RuPaul: I love agave.
Michelle Visage: Yes but it’s no good for you.
RuPaul: Is it not good for you?
Michelle Visage: Nope, one of the best sugars you can use is coconut nectar, coconut sugar, I have switched everything over and some people are not good with coconut, they don’t like it or it doesn’t react well with their bodies. But agave is just as bad as eating sugar.
RuPaul: I love to take some cottage cheese and put agave on it and sprinkle a little cinnamon.
Michelle Visage: I have an idea for you instead of agave.
RuPaul: Or the Greek yoghurt, I put some plain Greek yoghurt, put some agave on it and sprinkle some shaved almonds or pine nuts or something.
Michelle Visage: Which is amazing, I’m not doing dairy right now so for me but let’s say I was, cottage cheese was a big one for me. The best way and you’re going to taste it and full in love, put some pineapple and no agave just pineapple in cottage cheese is heaven on earth.
RuPaul: That sounds good.
Michelle Visage: Hear me now you are going to love it and you’re going to say “Who needs agave?”, and you’re cutting out one more sugar out of your life. But yes you and I like our sugar, we’re sugar people.
RuPaul: I love that.
Michelle Visage: We’ve got to stay away from it. RuPaul: Listen my mother went in to hibernation for about two years after the divorce, we were on our own.
Michelle Visage: So what would you eat every day?
RuPaul: She would say “Look get yourself some toast or there’s some fish sticks in the freezer.”.
Michelle Visage: I may or may not have had a night like that, but I try to justify it by buying my fish sticks at Wholefoods so at least they’re organic fish sticks.
RuPaul: Grilled cheese sandwiches.
Michelle Visage: Purple drink.
RuPaul: Yes that’s what we grew up on, commodity cheese honey.
Michelle Visage: But that’s what I grew up on to which is why our generation is not the healthiest, that’s why cancer has shot up so much. My mother’s idea of juice was hic and you know what I’m talking about, hic in the big fat can and you need the church key to open it. She had every single color soda in the world, there was cream, there was black cherry, everybody loved to come to my house because I had two fat parents and they had every sugar cereal. My friends were not, they had like generic Weetabix and we had honeycombs, coco pebbles and all that stuff.
RuPaul: What’s your favorite cereal?
Michelle Visage: Sugar cereal?
RuPaul: Yes.
Michelle Visage: I happen to love Honey Smacks.
RuPaul: Really?
Michelle Visage: Dig’em the frog.
RuPaul: Oh yes I remember them, I had them back then but I’m a Captain Crunch kid.
Michelle Visage: I love Captain Crunch.
RuPaul: With crunch berries.
Michelle Visage: I love peanut butter Captain Crunch.
RuPaul: It just tears up the roof of your mouth.
Michelle Visage: It shreds your mouth, you will be shredded for three days after. You’re thinking to yourself “Why is my mouth so shredded? Oh, because I ate Captain friggin Crunch that’s why my mouth is shredded.”. I love the cereal I love honey combs.
RuPaul: I love some frosted flakes, those are delicious.
Michelle Visage: They’re poison.
RuPaul: It’s a lot of sugar and it’s a lot of wheat. Michelle Visage: Everything that’s bad for you is in a breakfast cereal.
RuPaul: I realize as an adult that I’m more interested in the crunch than anything else.
Michelle Visage: So we try to trick ourselves and give us celery sticks but that doesn’t do the job for me.
RuPaul: They do have those things at Open Source.
Michelle Visage: Open Source, now that’s all I hear is Open Source.
RuPaul: What is it they’re called, they’re Crunchies and they’re raw.
Michelle Visage: But what are they?
RuPaul: I have no idea.
Michelle Visage: Kale chips?
RuPaul: I love the kale chips.
Michelle Visage: When we start filming season seven the downside is they get in your teeth, but I travel with floss but I make really great kale chips and I’ll do a batch of the salt and pepper ones and bring them in.
RuPaul: They have something called Crunchies and I’m going to say it’s onions, sesame seeds and something else but they’re delicious. So that’s what I do to bring my weight down, of course this morning I was at the gym at 5 o’clock this morning.
Michelle Visage: You hike every day.
RuPaul: I went on a hike this morning, I went to a meditation group at 6:30am.
Michelle Visage: You helped a lot of people with that meditation podcast and a lot of people had a good idea and something for you to think about, of you doing a guided meditation on Audible or something. It’s something to think about because a lot of people are like me and I don’t get it, and you broke it down so simply that it might be something you want to think about.
RuPaul: Maybe I can think about it, is there money in it at all?
Michelle Visage: Well let’s find out! Do a guided meditation, let’s find out.
RuPaul: Now before we get in to my morning let’s take a moment to talk about Squarespace. Yes honey your website is important and nobody needs to be telling you your website is ugly and unusable, and you can’t even navigate it because that isn’t going to sell anything. That’s why I use Squarespace, not a designer? Not a problem, Squarespace has tons of incredible templates for you to choose from. You can choose a website that looks really great and their drag and drop platform is so incredibly easy to use, and it’s actually fun. Do you need a website where you can sell some of your merchandise? Not a problem, you can even build an online store with Squarespace to sell your merchandise. Squarespace’s plans start at only $8.00 a month and come with a free domain name when you sign up for a year. $8.00 A month. Listen you care about the way you look and you know that sends a message right? So you wouldn’t want your website to send some trashy message, you want something that’s concise and gorgeous. That’s why you need to go to Squarespace. Get a free trial with no credit card required just by going to Squarespace.com/RuPaul. Now when you’re blown away and ready to confirm a plan, use the offer code ‘Ru’ and get 10% off. You’ll be getting a great deal and be supporting this podcast by helping to keep it free for you, that’s Squarespace.com/RuPaul with the offer code ‘Ru’. Now I know you guys are already building Squarespace websites and I want to see them, send your Squarespace websites to [email protected] and we might even talk about it on the podcast. Thanks again to Squarespace, please support them since they support us. That was my morning first of all I got up and I stretched, I went to the gym after that, came back here and did a little tweeting, went to my meditation group and then I went on a hike.
Michelle Visage: And you guys have to know that you look at Ru and he’s 6’4 and thin, but Ru likes the junk food too so all season Ru can put on some pounds too. It doesn’t happen easily for him, for me, for any of these queens I know that a lot of the queens really diet for the show. You see them afterwards and they’re like “Oh my god food, I want to eat…!”, don’t think that it happens easily for Ru either, it’s a matter of doing it. I started walking 2-4 miles every day depending by myself, my husband comes sometimes, sometimes I take the dog but I find that you’re right it clears the mind even if I just listen to music.
RuPaul: Especially if it’s early in the morning because the air is clean, what’s that movie with Julia Roberts where she plays an actress at nine months where she says “I’ve been on a diet for the past 20 years.” As an actor.
Michelle Visage: That’s Notting Hill.
RuPaul: Is it Notting Hill? It is, where she’s the actress yes.
Michelle Visage: I love that movie.
RuPaul: It’s fun and I love that Matthew Modine is in that, he plays an actor in a scene in that who we both love.
Michelle Visage: He knows how obsessed we are over him.
RuPaul: I just saw him over here at that M Café, is that raw food?
Michelle Visage: It’s macrobiotic, you saw him there?
RuPaul: I saw him there with his family.
Michelle Visage: His wife is a sweetheart.
RuPaul: His wife was there, his daughter was there who’s about 17 now or maybe she’s 16, she’s a big fan of RuPaul’s drag race.
Michelle Visage: Oh yay, your tongue is wagging.
RuPaul: This is the thing, I always have to watch myself around him.
Michelle Visage: I think for you and I we share some lusting but we were very separate.
RuPaul: You’re a big Sean Penn fan who I think is brilliant, but I don’t think he’s sexy. Michelle Visage: Before I knew you before I even knew what a lady boner was, Sean Penn was it for me, Jeff Goldblum has always been it for both of us. You’ve always loved Ed O’Neil.
RuPaul: I love Ed O’Neil.
Michelle Visage: I know I’ve always been that way with John Malkovich which you don’t understand, Matthew Modine has always been the same thing for you.
RuPaul: You know who I met recently who I have always been in love with is that guy with the three names, he’s English but he’s of African descent and he was on Lost. His name is Adewale Akinnuoye- Agbaje
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Michelle Visage: I know exactly who you’re talking about.
RuPaul: He’s got three names, they all start with an A and the first name is Adewale. I was on the Arsenio Hall Show recently and he was on that same how, we got to meet one another and we actually have a picture together you can see it on my Twitter feed.
Michelle Visage: I’ve got to look at it.
RuPaul: Oh my god.
Michelle Visage: You were wonderful on the Arsenio show, especially with that horrible joke they did.
RuPaul: Which one?
Michelle Visage: They brought that guy out.
RuPaul: I’m so used to it.
Michelle Visage: I know you are but you’re so good with it, my friend Diana Steel.
RuPaul: She was there.
Michelle Visage: She’s the announcer I did a radio show with her here in Los Angeles, she’s the announcer on the studio show and she was so happy when you were going to be there, and then she’s like “Michelle I can’t even tell you…”, she as mortified.
RuPaul: Trust me they told me that they were going to have a “drag queen” come out who was part of the staff, I said “Let me see him first.” So they took me to the makeup area and saw him and said “Why didn’t you guys shave him?”.
Michelle Visage: They did nothing, they threw a wig and really bad dress on him.
RuPaul: And you know what? It’s because everyday makeup artists did him, it has to be a special makeup who understands it, do you want to do a joke or do you want him to look fierce? It was the joke look and there’s a whole psychology around why they do the joke thing which I don’t know if we’ve got time to ho in to.
Michelle Visage: We don’t but they think it’s funny. RuPaul: They think it’s funny but there’s also this idea they don’t want to feel threatened.
Michelle Visage: Ru it offended me a little bit I’m going to be honest, you know I don’t get offended at all. It was a mockery of what we do and you know what the world does, you know how to handle it and I was so proud of you because you handled it like a pro. But there was a part of me that was offended because it was a mockery of what it is that we do, and it’s not that, it’s so much more than that. A great quote from Victoria “Porkchop” Parker in the movie Pageant she said “The first time I ever did drag, I went in to my momma’s closet, I took out her dress, I wore her dress and the biggest mistake I ever made was letting a real girl do my makeup.”. There you have it so that’s what happened there and it was a mockery, and they didn’t mean to be rude but that’s how it come off.
RuPaul: Well that’s the comedy aspect of it and listen, mockery schmockery the thing is drag does mock our culture that’s what it’s there for. It’s there to mock what us humans think of as our selves or what we take so seriously.
Michelle Visage: It’s a double standard, it’s okay for us to do it.
RuPaul: It’s the intent though I guess.
Michelle Visage: I guess it wasn’t an evil intent, it was meant to be funny.
RuPaul: I didn’t mind it, I would just have loved to have seen this guy dressed up really gorgeous.
Michelle Visage: Like really do it.
RuPaul: Yes like really do it, but I think that the makeup artists would have been intimidated by it. The makeup artists had a vested interest whether she knew it on a conscious level or not to keep him as a joke, because if she did it for real it would threaten her whole belief system and I think that’s why that style of drag is easier for them to take. They go “Oh haha you’re being funny I get it.”, where if I had got my hands on him and turned him out and pushed them titties up he would be hot, it would scare him, it would scare his wife, it would scare everybody there because they would then know everything is a mockery. That scares people.
Michelle Visage: That’s on the deeper level but it’s really true.
RuPaul: A lot of people won’t be able to get that but that’s okay.
Michelle Visage: You did an incredible job handling it, at first I was like “Haha… haha…” and then “Yes this isn’t funny.”.
RuPaul: I had not seen him since I did his show, he started my career in to the big leagues.
Michelle Visage: I remember it.
RuPaul: It was my parents on his show that changed everything.
Michelle Visage: All we wanted to do back then as a group (Seduction) was get on Arsenio.
RuPaul: I thought you guys were on Arsenio. Michelle Visage: Nope we were never on Arsenio, he did not book us, we could not get on his show. We tried desperately, Young MC was there so we were in the audience when Young MC got on the show but we did not get on the show.
RuPaul: You guys were on tour with Young MC.
Michelle Visage: And Milli Vanilli.
RuPaul: What of those late night shows were you guys on? Because I’ve seen footage of you guys.
Michelle Visage: Rick Dees which was on for like one or two seasons, we did [1:03:54].
RuPaul: Oh yay.
Michelle Visage: Nancy Reagan walked on when we were there, we did Nia Peeples Party Train.
RuPaul: I remember that show.
Michelle Visage: Party Train right?
RuPaul: I think it was The Party Machine with Nia Peeples Michelle Visage: Whatever that was, we did the Mickey Mouse Club, we didn’t do any late night besides Rick Dees.
RuPaul: But you guys did at the Apollo.
Michelle Visage: Yes we did.
RuPaul: What was that called?
Michelle Visage: Showtime at the Apollo and it was a big deal for us, that’s where I met Sinbad for the first time because he was filling in for Steve Harvey or whoever was hosting it at the time. It was a big deal and that was a horrible experience for me because I had walking pneumonia and they gave me a makeup artist, I think I told you who saw white girl and painted me literally white like the color of a tissue. I looked in the mirror and I started crying, I’m not a crier you know this, and David came over to me and said “Just take it off and do it yourself.”.
RuPaul: Did you?
Michelle Visage: Yes I took it off and did it myself and the show must just like Olivia Newton-John, the show went on with walking pneumonia and I had to rap at the Apollo. That was difficult because the first time we came out they were not having it.
RuPaul: You weren’t lip syncing?
Michelle Visage: No.
RuPaul: Oh dear.
Michelle Visage: Seduction never lip synced, we sang over our track so the mic was always live but my rap part was not recorded so that was live. RuPaul: Now what about the song the Martha Wash actually sings, in concert did you guys do that song, what was it? You’re My One and Only.
Michelle Visage: Our first single.
RuPaul: What happened was Clivilles and Cole put together a girl group that didn’t actually exist in reality.
Michelle Visage: It was a concept.
RuPaul: And Martha Wash sang all the voices of this girl group, then it became a hit and they had to put a girl group together and they hired you, April and Idalis.
Michelle Visage: We didn’t redo You’re My One and Only True Love because Martha already did it, it had already charted I think it went to number 25 and that’s when they realized “My god, we have to put a group together.”. They sped the vocals up so you couldn’t really tell it was Martha, she dumbed it down to make it a pop song and she sang “When you came in to my life” like that.
RuPaul: Did you guys do that song in concert?
Michelle Visage: Yes April would just sing over her vocals, C+C didn’t think that we were strong enough to pull off our vocals on TV tracks, so no matter what we did we always had to have the guiding vocal under us. The microphones were live so they could hear that we could sing, but we also threw down as dancers in the vein of Janet Jackson, Madonna, and they didn’t sing live either. We danced so hard we’d be panting so part of them was right to always have the track there, but the other part was April would get really offended because she’s like “I’m a singer I come from a church.” And I’m like “Girl I can sing too but I’m fine with the track there, just dance, go.”. That’s kind of what the theory was behind having the vocal track there so we just sang over Martha’s vocals, but it was amazing trying to compete with Martha Wash.
RuPaul: Do you remember that song by Liz Torres “If you keep it up, gonna give you up”.
Michelle Visage: Yes that was one song.
RuPaul: It’s Martha doing all the background stuff and you can hear her.
Michelle Visage: Is it?
RuPaul: Yes it’s Clivilles and Cole which is the production company that you worked with, and Liz Torres is singing the lead.
Michelle Visage: She’s the dirty one, Liz Torres was the dirty one.
RuPaul: Yes I love her, well kids there you have it.
Michelle Visage: A lot of information in What’s the Tee today.
RuPaul: Yes RuPaul What’s the Tee featuring Michelle Visage.
Michelle Visage: That’s me, teehee. RuPaul: Well this was fun, you guys be sure to come back and join us again next time. It’s going to be always as informative, I hope you got something from this.
Michelle Visage: A bunch of stuff flying at your face which we’re kind of used to.
RuPaul: Well you are.
Michelle Visage: Okay me, see you next time.
RuPaul: Alright bye.
Michelle Visage: Bye.