This week, the drag queen RuPaul earned a rareNew Yorkerdistinction, becoming one of the few figures profiled not once but twice by the magazine. (Other members of this exclusive club include Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Picasso.)Ronan Farrow’s portraitcaptures RuPaul resplendent—and reflective—upon his throne, sixteen seasons, fourteen Emmys, and countless spinoffs into his reality-TV competition, “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” a ratings hit that has become “one of the world’s most far-reaching platforms for queer expression.” The article also takes in the conservative backlash against L.G.B.T.Q. rights, which lately has targeted drag performers in particular. Half of RuPaul’s lifetime ago,The New Yorkerspotlighted the entertainerjust as his first wave of fame was cresting. His breakthrough single, “Supermodel (You Better Work!),” was nearing the top of theBillboarddance chart, and the writer Guy Trebay had recently witnessed an unlikely ensemble—a men’s hockey team—performing the song in a subway station. Reality TV as we know it had yet to be invented, but the president of RuPaul’s record label, considering the future, appears to anticipate the potential for something like “Drag Race.” The moment was exhilarating, but the article is also clear-eyed about the challenges that RuPaul faces as a “black man achieving success by dressing as a woman.” And no one stays more lucid than RuPaul himself. His gift was, and remains, the ability to see the artifice in how we present ourselves to the world, and to use that game of dress-up as a source of fun and inspiration. “I always say you’re born naked,” he explains, “and the rest is drag.” | 
