RuPaul's Drag Race Trivia
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This RuPaul's Drag Race trivia quiz has 98 free questions with answers covering the show that brought drag into the mainstream. It runs from the 2009 Logo premiere through the MTV era, taking in the winners from BeBe Zahara Benet to the most recent crownings, the judges (RuPaul, Michelle Visage, Santino Rice, Carson Kressley, Ross Mathews, Ts Madison), and the rituals fans quote by heart, from 'shantay, you stay' to the C.U.N.T. acronym and 'if you can't love yourself'. There are rounds on the signature challenges, above all Snatch Game and its most-impersonated celebrities, plus the Reading challenge, Rusicals and the Lip Sync for Your Life. The queens get their own questions: Sharon Needles, Jinkx Monsoon's two crowns, Bianca Del Rio at Wembley, Trixie and Katya, Sasha Velour's rose-petal reveal, Chad Michaels as Cher and many more. It also covers All Stars, the Untucked aftershow and the global spread of the format to the UK, Canada, Australia and beyond. Questions run from easy for anyone who has watched a season to hard for the fans who have seen every Untucked. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia and each question shows its source once you have answered, so it is ready for a viewing-party quiz or a solo test of your herstory.
30 of 98 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01On which network did RuPaul's Drag Race first premiere in February 2009?
Logo
Logo, Viacom's LGBT-focused cable channel, premiered the show on 2 February 2009; it moved to VH1 for season 9 in 2017 and to MTV from season 15 in 2023.
Q 02What title is the winner of each regular season of RuPaul's Drag Race crowned with?
America's Next Drag Superstar
America's Next Drag Superstar is crowned in a finale filmed with several endings, a habit begun after one winner's name leaked before air, so the queens learn who won only when it is broadcast.
Q 03RuPaul's Drag Race judges its queens on charisma, uniqueness, nerve and which fourth quality?
Talent
Talent completes the four qualities RuPaul asks of a winner; the list doubles as a joke, because the initials of its four words spell out a rude one.
Q 04Which recurring maxi challenge tests celebrity impersonation and parodies a 1970s panel show?
Snatch Game
Snatch Game, a parody of the 1970s game show Match Game, has queens impersonate celebrities on a panel; it debuted in season 2 and became the show's signature challenge.
Q 05Which 1990 documentary inspired RuPaul's Drag Race's reading challenge, where queens trade playful insults?
Paris Is Burning
Paris Is Burning, Jennie Livingston's film about New York's ball culture, is where the contest comes from; RuPaul opens each round by reminding the queens that 'reading is fundamental'.
Q 06Season 12 of RuPaul's Drag Race staged an 'Unauthorized Rusical' about the career of which pop star?
Madonna
Madonna got the full musical-theatre treatment in season 12's Rusical, which Gigi Goode won; congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sat on the judging panel that week.
Q 07The two lowest-placing queens each week must perform which final act to stay in the competition?
Lip Sync for Your Life
In the Lip Sync for Your Life, the bottom two perform the same song; the winner is told 'shantay, you stay' and the loser to 'sashay away'.
Q 08Who was crowned the winner of the very first season of RuPaul's Drag Race?
BeBe Zahara Benet
BeBe Zahara Benet, born in Cameroon, won season 1 in 2009 over runner-up Nina Flowers and later returned to compete on All Stars 3.
Q 09Which RuPaul's Drag Race season 2 queen, eliminated first, started the tradition of lipstick messages on the mirror?
Shangela
Shangela, the first queen sent home in season 2, wrote the first lipstick farewell on the mirror; she returned in season 3 and reached the All Stars 3 finale.
Q 10Which Drag Race season 4 winner is a horror-themed queen whose real name is Aaron Coady?
Sharon Needles
Sharon Needles won the season's first main challenge, a post-apocalyptic couture runway, with a ghoulish look, and took the crown that April.
Q 11Which season 4 contestant became the first queen ever disqualified from RuPaul's Drag Race?
Willam
Willam had just won that week's challenge when RuPaul sent her home for breaking the rules; at the reunion she blamed hotel visits from her husband, a story she has since called a cover.
Q 12Chad Michaels, a season 4 runner-up and winner of All Stars 1, is famous for impersonating which singer?
Cher
Chad Michaels built a career as a Cher impersonator in Las Vegas revues, then played Cher in season 4's celebrity-impersonation challenge and won it.
Q 13Which season 5 winner became the first queen to win two crowns by later taking All Stars 7?
Jinkx Monsoon
Q 21Which Taiwan-raised season 16 winner was the first East Asian queen to win RuPaul's Drag Race?
Nymphia Wind
Nymphia Wind, known for her yellow, banana-themed looks, was congratulated by Taiwan's president after the win and performed a drag show at the presidential office the next month.
Q 22Season 15 winner Sasha Colby had already won which major drag pageant back in 2012?
Miss Continental
Miss Continental was founded in Chicago in 1980 as a pageant open to performers who had taken hormones or had surgery, which rival Miss Gay America bars; Sasha Colby won it eleven years before her Drag Race crown.
Q 23In which city was RuPaul born in 1960?
San Diego
Jinkx Monsoon won season 5 in 2013 and the all-winners All Stars 7 in 2022, then moved on to Broadway as Mama Morton in Chicago and to Doctor Who as the villain Maestro.
Q 14Which comedian and costume designer won season 6 and later headlined Wembley Arena?
Bianca Del Rio
Bianca Del Rio took the stand-up show It's Jester Joke to Wembley Arena in 2019, a long way from the New Orleans theatres where the teenage Roy Haylock started out sewing costumes.
Q 15RuPaul's Drag Race season 7 winner Violet Chachki is best known for which style of performance?
Burlesque
Burlesque is Violet Chachki's calling card, often performed in the air on silks or a hoop; after her win she toured with Dita Von Teese's revue The Art of the Teese.
Q 16Which season 8 winner co-hosted HBO's We're Here and released the single 'Purse First'?
Bob the Drag Queen
Bob the Drag Queen released 'Purse First' soon after winning season 8; on We're Here the hosts travelled to small American towns and put local residents on stage in one-night-only drag shows.
Q 17Drag Race season 9 winner Sasha Velour's finale lip sync released a shower of what from under her wig?
Rose petals
Rose petals fell as Sasha Velour, usually bald on the runway, lifted a red wig during Whitney Houston's 'So Emotional'; the reveal beat Shea Couleé in the show's first lip-sync tournament for the crown.
Q 18Who won season 11 of RuPaul's Drag Race in 2019?
Yvie Oddly
Yvie Oddly, a Denver queen, met runner-up Brooke Lynn Hytes twice in lip syncs: mid-season, when RuPaul refused to send either of them home, and in the finale, which Yvie won for the crown.
Q 19RuPaul's Drag Race recorded its season 12 finale in an unusual way because of what?
The COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic forced the show's first virtual finale in May 2020: the three finalists lip-synced on camera from separate locations, and Jaida Essence Hall was crowned remotely.
Q 20Drag Race season 12 winner Jaida Essence Hall hails from which US city, also Trixie Mattel's birthplace?
Milwaukee
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is where Jaida Essence Hall was born and came up through the pageant scene; Trixie Mattel, born there too, became co-owner in 2021 of This Is It!, then the state's oldest gay bar.
RuPaul was born in San Diego on 17 November 1960 and moved to Atlanta at 15; his Louisiana-born mother named him 'Ru' after roux, the base of gumbo.
Q 24RuPaul broke into the mainstream in 1993 with which dance single?
Supermodel (You Better Work)
'Supermodel (You Better Work)' and its video, with RuPaul strutting in a blonde wig, became a hit; film roles followed, and a MAC Cosmetics contract made him the first drag queen to front a major cosmetics brand.
Q 25Which longtime friend of RuPaul became a permanent judge from season 3 in 2011?
Michelle Visage
Michelle Visage and RuPaul go back to the 1990s, when they co-hosted a New York morning radio show and his TV talk show; she took over Merle Ginsberg's seat on the panel in season 3.
Q 26Which Project Runway alum served as a Drag Race judge from seasons 1 through 6?
Santino Rice
Santino Rice, a finalist on Project Runway's second season, judged the first six seasons of Drag Race; from season 7 two rotating judges shared his former seat.
Q 27Which regular RuPaul's Drag Race judge since season 15 starred in her own WE tv reality series in 2021?
Ts Madison
Ts Madison first found fame through a viral Vine clip in 2013; The Ts Madison Experience followed on WE tv in 2021, and after several guest spots she joined the Drag Race panel for season 15.
Q 28Which former Queer Eye for the Straight Guy star joined Drag Race's rotating judges in season 7?
Carson Kressley
Carson Kressley was the 'Fashion Savant' of Bravo's original Queer Eye; in 2015 he and Ross Mathews became Drag Race's alternating judges, taking turns in a single seat on the panel.
Q 29What is the name of the RuPaul's Drag Race set where queens prepare for each challenge?
The Werk Room
The Werk Room is where the queens first meet, walking in one at a time on day one, and where they sew and paint before each challenge.
Q 30Which RuPaul's Drag Race companion show follows the queens' off-stage drama while the judges deliberate?
Untucked
Untucked began alongside season 2 in 2010, was cut back to a YouTube web series for seasons 7 to 9, and returned to television with season 10.