Iconic RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Bob the Drag Queen is a novelist, baby
Bob the Drag Queen is a novelist now, baby (@bobthedragqueen, Albert Sanchez / Instagram )
RuPaul’s Drag Race winner and The Traitors star Bob the Drag Queen has branched out into a new career path – she’s a novelist, baby.
Few RuPaul’s Drag Race winners have had careers quite as glittering as Ms. Robert the Female Impersonator (AKA Bob the Drag Queen). Bob snatched the season eight crown of the show’s flagship franchise in 2016 and now hosts a hugely successful podcast, Sibling Rivalry, with bestie and fellow champ Monét X Change.
She’s toured with Madonna, she’s murdered Housewives on The Traitors and she’s looked good doing it. So what next? Oh, yeah, write a book about legendary American abolitionist and activist Harriet Tubman.
Tubman was born into slavery in 1822, but escaped to Philadelphia from Maryland in the late 1840s; after, she made some 13 missions to rescue many further enslaved people.
Speaking to Vanity Fair, Bob has revealed his own twist on Tubman’s life, and explained that the book is about, “Harriet Tubman coming back to life and writing a hip-hop album to continue her work as an abolitionist,” – and she’s “incredibly proud” of her work.
Bob has also recorded several original songs for the novel. The first, she explained, is the name of Harriet’s album in the book, titled “Queen of the Underground.”
The second, “Now I See”, is, “a bit more emotional,” Bob explained.
“It’s about a particular experience in Harriet’s life. I’m obviously imagining what Harriet Tubman would have rapped like, as I literally have nothing to pull from. We don’t even know what her voice sounded like, so I was pulling on my own experiences and my own voice to create this one.”
Bob added, “There’s a genuine sincerity in my book while also acknowledging how ridiculous it is for Harriet Tubman to come back to life and record a hip-hop album in Harlem.”
Obviously, any project with Bob at the helm is going to have her trademark comedy involved – but Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert has a serious tone, too.
“I want people to know the depth of the work that she did. It was not just walking people back and forth — which is not a “just,” obviously. She did so much more than that too,” she explained.
“She continued on as an abolitionist, as a suffragette, and in her civil rights work. She had so many skills that she developed later in her life, and she applied them all to building community and helping others.”
Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert by Bob the Drag Queen is set to release 25 March from Simon & Schuster.
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