RuPaul

He spent over a decade working underground clubs in Atlanta and New York before a single track broke through. Supermodel (You Better Work) hit No. 2 on the dance charts in 1993, the first drag queen to crack mainstream chart success. MAC Cosmetics signed him the following year as their spokesperson, the first drag queen in a major beauty campaign. He didn't invent drag, but he made it legible to people who'd never set foot in a club.

RuPaul's Drag Race started on niche cable in 2009. The move to VH1 in 2017 turned it into a franchise empire, and RuPaul into the holder of the most wins as Outstanding Host for a Reality or Competition Program in Emmy history, with eight consecutive wins in that category (a Guinness World Record). He reportedly earns around $1 million per episode. But a 2018 interview where he said trans women who'd had surgery would "probably not" be allowed to compete drew lasting criticism from the community the show claims to represent. The show has since cast and crowned trans contestants, but the comments haven't been forgotten.

His birth name is RuPaul Andre Charles, and the 'Ru' wasn't a stage invention. His mother picked it, derived from roux, the French base in Creole cooking. He grew up in San Diego, moved to Atlanta at 15, and has said he never had to 'come out' because he was never 'in.' He met his husband, Australian rancher Georges LeBar, at a New York nightclub in 1994 and married him 23 years later in a private ceremony, telling almost nobody. The public persona is massive. The private life is deliberately small.