RuPaul’s Drag Race gets highest ever ratings thanks to Lady Gaga

RuPaul’s Drag Race has aired to its biggest ever audience.

The show recently moved from its original channel of Logo, who make the show, to a new mainstream slot, now broadcasting on VH1.

Friday’s premiere of series nine got almost one million viewers – its biggest ever showing.

It hauled in 987,000 total viewers, to be precise, a new series record.

That’s more than double its series eight premiere and tripled VH1’s time slot average.

Viewers who tuned in will have seen a very moving speech by Lady Gaga.

The drag queen-inspired Born This Way singer had long been rumored for a role on the reality series, and the dream finally came true during Season nine’s premiere on Friday.

Gaga took a super-serious approach to judging the contest’s drag pageant challenge.

But fans who skipped Drag Race backstage show Untucked missed out on an extra dose of Gaga, as she snuck in to visit the queens.

Appearing on Untucked, Gaga let slip some of the emotion she had been feeling during her appearance on the main show.

Of her connection with the gay community, she said: “I’m not a gay woman, you know? And it’s that touchy sort of subject where can you stand up for people that you are not necessarily fully part of that community in a way that you can understand what you all go through, right?

“But I have always been surrounded by incredibly intelligent, powerful gay men who have lifted me up through lots of changes in my life.

“Becoming famous was very strange and it’s the gay men in my life that helped me to become a woman.

“I don’t know that a lot of people would understand that but it’s because of what you’ve through ― you have survived so much that you inspire me to continue surviving. So thank you for that.”

The show recently found a new home – after ‘going mainstream’.

• Nov 29 2023

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