A RuPaul’s Drag Race producer is releasing a book that will spill the tea on the franchise
RuPaul’s Drag Race seas 16 crowned its winner after a stunt-filled final lip sync. (World of Wonder)
A RuPaul’s Drag Race producer is releasing a book that will spill the tea on the franchise.
Entitled, ScreenAge: How TV Shaped Our Reality, From Tammy Faye to RuPaul’s Drag Race it comes from World of Wonder co-founder, Fenton Bailey.
It’ll tell the story of World of Wonder which has revolutionised reality TV and supported and placed queer voices into the mainstream.
The book is due for release on 17 November in the UK and early 2023 in the US and can be pre-ordered from Amazon.
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“ScreenAge is my love letter to television. It is a personal odyssey and a cultural journey. RuPaul has said ‘everything I learned, I learned through television’ and thanks to television I saw who I was and I found my tribe,” Bailey said.
He added: “The book is also about the big impact of the small screen on all of our lives. It has made the invisible, visible, especially outsiders and those on the margins.”
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The book will be a first-hand look into Bailey’s beginnings, who moved to New York in 1982 and teamed up with filmmaking partner and life-long friend Randy Barbato.
Together the pair started their production company World of Wonder and their programmes chronicled everything from Bible Belt televangelists and conspiracy theories to outrageous drag queens.
Most famously it’s known for creating and producing the Emmy Award-winning show, RuPaul’s Drag Race, which has put queer people on centre stage on screens across the globe.
The book is described as a “must-rad for Drag Race die-hard fans” as the producer will spill behind-the-scenes tea and what it’s been like working with RuPaul over the past decade.
It’ll also feature insider gossip and celebrity stories, including Bailey’s accounts of his work with pop culture icons, Britney Spears, and Tammy Faye Baker.
It also features a foreword by Drag Race UK judge Graham Norton who recounts how he found his beginning through working with Bailey and World of Wonder.
“Fenton is like the Forrest Gump of popular and tabloid culture. If it created headlines, he was there,” Norton said.
The book will be released on 17 November in the UK and is now available to pre-order on hardback or Kindle from Amazon. While US fans can get their hands on it in early 2023.
Drag Race producer spills tea on how lip-sync songs are chosen
Speaking to The WOW Report, executive producer Tom Campbell said that the team that pick each track is – unsurprisingly – comprised of “queer people who are obsessed with pop music and pop culture”.
Ultimately, though, he revealed that RuPaul gets the final word. Well, it is her show, after all.
He explained: “[RuPaul] will reject songs because they’re the wrong tempo, they don’t build, there’s all of these factors he’s thinking about. Back in the iPod days, when RuPaul gave you an iPod that he had loaded with music, it was a gift from God…”
Campbell went on to describe RuPaul as “a PhD in pop culture, especially when it comes to music”.
The producer, who has been on RuPaul’s Drag Race since the first season, said it wasn’t always as easy to clear a song for use as it is today.
“We were this little show that nobody knew, we were trying to get clearances, and it was really tough.”
Now, music companies have changed their tune.
Rochelle Holguin Cappello, who is Paramount Global’s head of creative music strategy, said: “The pitches [to have their music performed on the show] include A-list artists just as frequently as emerging acts. We’ve been told so many times that it would be an artist’s dream to have their music performed on the show.”
