Opening The Closet Door: 8 Singers Who Had To Deal With Speculation About Their Sexuality

RuPaul

RuPaul, singer, actor and creator of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” was never forced to come out, as he already was, but forced to play into a certain stereotype. When his career took off in the late ’80s and early ’90s, the singer had two successful albums- Supermodel of the World, and Foxy Lady. While these did great on the Dance Charts, Ru was creating his brand with TV shows, huge endorsement deals with M.A.C. and appearing in several movies. When he decided to release another album in 2004 entitled Red Hot, Ru claims that people (mainly the gay community actually) refused to review the album so no one virtually knew about it.

“Betrayed might be the wrong word. ‘Betrayed’ alludes to an idea that there was some kind of a promise made to me, and there never was. More so, I was disappointed. I don’t feel like it was a betrayal. Nobody promises anything in show business and you understand that from day one. But, I don’t know what happened. It seemed I couldn’t get press on my album unless I was willing to play into the role that the mainstream press has assigned to gay people, which is as servants of straight ideals.”

Today, Ru has the success of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and “DragU” for introducing him to a whole new generation. His latest album Glamazon debuted at number 11 and number 8 on Billboard’s Dance/Electronic Albums and Top Heatseekers charts, in May 2011. The digital album sold 2,000 copies, Ru’s highest first-week sales since 1997.