Michelle Visage Dishes on Ballroom Culture, RuPaul, and Her Favorite Guest Judges

“When I look back at these photos now, I think, ‘Oh my god, I was so lucky,’” says Visage. And kismet certainly came into play back then, considering she practically stumbled her way into the world of ballroom. In the late ’80s, Visage was a student at the American Musical Dramatic Academy in New York City, taking the train multiple nights a week to go to teen clubs throughout the tristate area. “My mom was like, ‘You have to stop doing that. You live in New York now, you can’t keep coming to New Jersey to go to these teen clubs. You have to go to clubs in the city and get recognized.’”

With a newly minted fake ID courtesy of her highly supportive mother, Visage headed to The Undergrounds, where she immediately encountered a boy named David. “He walked up to me and said, “You have the most beautiful face I’ve ever seen in my life.” She followed him to a back room at the club that “was filled with 20 or 30 of the weirdest-looking misfits I’d ever seen in my life, and it felt like I’d arrived somewhere magical. They were doing something called voguing, which I’d never seen before, but all I knew is that I wanted to learn how to do it.”

Later, Visage met her future house father, Cesar Valentino, and joined the House of Magnifique. One night, while Magnifique was voguing at a club called The Red Zone, nightlife legend Susanne Bartsch took notice. “She came up to me and said, ‘Darling, I want you to vogue for me.’ So we got four or five members of our house together and we would go to every Susanne party. She wouldn’t pay us a lot, like 300 bucks—but it was always enough to cover cab fare.”

When Visage graduated from ADMA, she spent her days auditioning while working as a receptionist in the Garment District to get by. One day, a friend she met through the club scene, Idalis DeLeón, gave her a call at the front desk while she was working. Idalis was, like Visage, trying to make a name for herself in the entertainment industry and had just gotten into an interracial girl group called Seduction. “I was like, ‘Hello, I’m your best friend. Do they need a white girl?’” When Idalis informed Visage that Seduction already had one, she had only one retort: “Well, they don’t have me.”

After much coaxing, Visage wrangled the phone number for the group’s management out of Idalis. “They liked my tenacity, so they invited me in to sing for them,” she recalls. Visage met with David Cole and Robert Clivillés, who would go on to create C+C Music Factory. She prepared “Deja Vu (I’ve Been Here Before)” by Teena Marie as well as Jennifer Holliday’s “I Am Love” for the audition, but couldn’t hit the high note of the latter track. So, Cole made her a deal: “If you hit those notes, you’re in the group.” Visage turned around to calm her nerves, then sung her heart out. “Pack your panties, you’re going to Virginia Beach,” Cole said.

With Seduction, Visage would go on to record the album Nothing Matters Without Love and a handful of singles, including “Two to Make It Right,” which reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100. “I made zero money, but I had an incredible time,” Visage says with a laugh.

Visage met RuPaul Charles at one of Susanne Bartsch’s many parties. (“That’s how most of us in the freak world met back in the day,” she recalls.) But Visage was in the ballroom scene and RuPaul was a club kid, two distinctly different subcultures with minimal crossover. In 1996, Visage was auditioning for a radio station; after weeks of testing her chemistry with various cohosts, the producers had just one more potential candidate.

“In walks RuPaul, and he says, ‘Of course it’s you. All roads lead to Visage.’” Unsurprisingly, Visage and RuPaul was the winning ticket, and the pair went on to host a hit show together. “We beat Howard Stern in our first ratings,” Visage notes. RuPaul brought Visage with him when he went to host The RuPaul Show on VH1, a part-talk-part-variety series that hosted celebrity guests and featured comedy skits, including humorous field reports from Visage herself.

RuPaul’s Drag Race historians know that Visage didn’t appear as a judge on the show until season three, but she was actually invited to join the panel from day one. At the time, however, Visage had just signed a five-year radio deal in Florida (“The dark years, I call them,” she says) when she got the call from Drag Race’s production company, World of Wonder. Visage requested two weeks off—without pay—to film Drag Race. “My boss said no, that it ‘wouldn’t be a good look for the radio station.’” A threatened lawsuit meant Visage had to drop the idea. “I was the sole breadwinner for my family. He would have sued me for four years of the contract.”

A few years later, when preparing for season three, World of Wonder called again—and this time, Visage wasn’t willing to let the opportunity pass her by. With some prompting from her longtime friend Leah Remini, Visage called the station’s vice president, who gave her the go-ahead.

“When I sat down for season three, Ru looked at me and said, ‘Now the show can begin.’” The radio station decided not to re-up the fifth year on her deal, but that was alright with Visage. She’d found the place where she belonged.

Of course, since season three (which aired in 2011) some things have changed quite a bit. “During season three, we were like the little engine that could,” Visage says before reconsidering. “I still feel like we’re the little engine that could, even with all the Emmy wins and nominations.” (It took nine seasons before any award recognition came rolling in, and now, RPDR has been nominated for 39 Emmys and has won 24.) Still, Visage thinks the show can get bigger. “It hasn’t reached its apex yet,” she says.

Of course, Visage has developed a reputation during her decade-plus on the show. She’s the harsh judge, the Simon Cowell of the panel—but there’s a respect that’s reflected in each of her critiques. “I do this for the betterment of them,” she says of the queens who compete on Drag Race. “I treat them the same way I treat my children.” As a performer herself, Visage tries to help the queens discover every facet of their art. “If they show the world all the colors they possess, they’re going to go further in this business than if they limit themselves to that one thing they’re so hell-bent on doing.”

Visage says she is just happy to sit next to her best friend—and get a front-row seat to “the best talent in the world,” every single day. “This show has changed so many lives, including my own,” she says.

“I’ve been a theater kid my whole life,” Visage says. Growing up, her family wasn’t as musically inclined, but she still recalls rummaging through her parents’s record collection one rainy day and coming upon the West Side Story cast recording for the first time. “I learned every single note, from overture to finale,” she recalls. “And I would perform it all the time for my parents. It was an obsession.”

Visage took part in every school musical and summer theater workshop she could find, convincing her mom to let her audition for a regional production of I Remember Mama when she was around 13. “It was a play, not a musical, but I was getting paid, and I remember thinking, ‘That means I’m a professional.’” Even when she was young, Visage’s sole dream was to perform. “I remember I wrote as my goal in my school yearbook something so cheesy, like, ‘Grace the silver screen and steal the Broadway scene.’”

In 2018, Visage made her West End debut as Miss Hedge in Everybody's Talking About Jamie, a coming-of-age story about a boy who finds an outlet in drag. In February 2024, she returned to the London theater scene for a three-show run of The Addams Family, in which she played Morticia. “Asking me my favorite musical is like asking me my favorite drag queen,” she says. Of course, West Side Story is high on that list. But if she had to choose a role for herself, she’d more likely go for Mama Rose in Gypsy, or Miss Mona in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. “It’s a gay Sophie’s Choice. It’s literally impossible.”

Anyone who watches Drag Race knows to expect a capital L look from Visage every time she hits the judges’ panel. Over the years, Visage has cultivated her own style—heavy with animal prints, neon colors, and lots of embellishment—that is singular to her. “My style is very New Jersey, and I wear that like a badge of honor.”

Growing up in South Plainfield, Visage stuck out for her eclectic style. While everyone else wore “a white T-shirt, Timberland boots, and jeans,” Visage was walking around the halls of school with a blue mohawk, spiked bracelets, and a padlock around her neck, à la Sid Vicious. Visage was inspired by the U.K. punk rock scene, but also some homegrown talent like The Go-Gos. “I am five-four, and I don’t have the traditional body type,” she says. “Belinda Carlisle shaped my style because Belinda was not skinny—and I’ve talked to her about this—she had the nerve to be in a mini skirt.”

During high school, Visage’s mom took her into the city to go shopping on her birthday. “I was allowed to buy one outfit, so I would shop the sale buckets and get four of five pieces for the price of one.” Betsey Johnson was the first brand that caught Visage’s eye. “She was crazy and she had a punk rock edge to her.” Later, when she moved to the city, Visage started shopping sample sales, picking up pieces from Anna Sui, Todd Oldham, and Byron Lars. She still remembers the first pair of Versace jeans she bought at Saks Fifth Avenue from Versace’s secondary brand, Versus. “I remember thinking, ‘Oh my God, I bought the pants that Naomi Campbell had on in the campaign.’”

Visage met her best friend, Leah Remini, through comedian and actor Sinbad, with whom Visage cohosted a radio show in 2001. “He asked me, ‘Do you know who you remind me of? My good friend Leah Remini.’ When someone says to you, ‘You have to meet this person, you’re going to love them,’ one of two things happens. You either love the person or it’s like, ‘Are you out of your fucking mind? I hate them.’”

Of course, with Visage and Remini, it was very much the former case. “It was literal love at first sight,” Visage says. Their slightly different East Coast upbringings help to balance out the relationship. “We always joke that we are very much the same person, only I’m a little nicer because I’m from Jersey and she’s from Brooklyn.”

In 2021, the two guest hosted The Wendy Williams Show for two weeks, though they’re hoping to get a more permanent gig eventually. “We have aspirations of doing our own talk show together,” Visage says. “Stay tuned. I really do think it’ll happen.”

Visage met Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler in 1990 at a gig for a Boston radio station. According to Visage, she left quite the impression on the musician. “If you look at me, I’m very much his type,” she says. “He asked me to come see him and his then-wife in their hotel room that night.” Visage declined the invitation, but she’s still flattered by the request to this day. “I am very proud that Steven Tyler wanted a piece of me.”

Visage has the unique privilege of spending time with the many A-list stars who filter in and out as guest judges on RuPaul’s Drag Race. During season 16, those circumstances brought Kaia Gerber into Visage’s life, as well as the model’s boyfriend, Austin Butler, who tagged along for the day on set.

“I am obsessed with Baz Luhrmann. I want to be in one of his movies. And Elvis was my favorite movie that year,” Visage says of Butler’s 2022 film with Luhrmann, adding that the actor was “robbed” of the Oscar. After hitting it off with Gerber, Visage felt comfortable enough to request an introduction to her boyfriend. “Kaia said, ‘Michelle, I would say no to everybody else, but I love you, so I’ll share with you.’”

Visage says she was very impressed by the young couple, calling them “as lovely as you’d want them to be.” She’s seen many hit it big in entertainment and lose their grasp on reality, but not Gerber and Butler. “Those two are so grounded, and they’re so wonderful together,” she says. “I give their parents credit for doing the right thing by teaching their children how to stay grounded.”

Two years ago, Visage returned to radio, this time in the U.K., with a show on BBC Radio 2. “Radio is still very alive in the U.K.,” she says. “We’re missing the memo because they got it on lock.” She has over 14 million listeners—including Kylie Minogue, whom she met during Radio 2 in the Park in September 2023, where the Australian singer was headlining.

“It immediately felt like we knew each other,” Visage says. “She’s another one who felt very down to earth. That’s what you want from your superstars: like they’re unapproachable, but when you do approach them, they’re like family.”

Betsey Johnson is still an important figure for Visage, a representation of her renouncement of the traditional fashion world. “That’s my queen,” Visage says of the designer. “She has broken down so many barriers. She has done so much for women’s fashion. She and Norma Kamali were doing it when nobody else was. Everyone else was taking it really fucking seriously, and here comes Betsey like, ‘I’m going to do cartwheels down the runway. So, fuck you.’”