Rupaul autobiography of benjamin

RuPaul has opened many a library, and now he's helping to fill them with a new memoir about his early life.

The Emmy-winning RuPaul's Drag Race host announced Wednesday that he's written a wide-ranging book titled The House of Hidden Meanings, which presents the global drag superstar "stripped bare" as he gets raw and real about his experiences, per a press release.

"RuPaul strips away all artifice and recounts the story of his life with breathtaking clarity and tenderness, bringing his signature wisdom and wit to his own biography," reads a synopsis for the book, which will only focus on his first 40 years of RuPaul's life — before he co-created Drag Race. "From his early years growing up as a queer Black kid in San Diego navigating complex relationships with his absent father and temperamental mother, to forging an identity in the punk and drag scenes of Atlanta and New York, to finding enduring love with his husband Georges LeBar and self-acceptance in sobriety, RuPaul excavates his life-story, uncovering new truths and insights in his personal history."

In an Instagram video tied to the announcement, RuPaul got emotional as he filled fans in on the process of writing the book.

"After two-and-a-half years, it's finally here. My memoir," the 62-year-old said. "I'm so excited and so anxious at the same time, because I reveal so much of myself. You know, this world today it feels so hostile and it's such a scary place to be vulnerable in, but I did it. So, get ready."

RuPaul elaborated in the video's caption that writing the book left him "gooped, gagged and, stripped raw," and admitted that he's "nervous as hell" for readers to learn new information about him contained within the memoir's pages.

In addition to chronicling his experience prior to building the global RuPaul's Drag Race empire, the book is set to chart his beginnings in San Diego, before moving to New York City, where he honed his craft as the world's foremost drag queen.

Since then, RuPaul's won 12 Emmys — the most for any Black artist in history — and appeared in over 50 films and TV shows, in addition to lending his voice to activist causes for the LGBTQIA+ community — most notably in 1995, when he became the first face of the MAC Viva Glam campaign that raised funds for AIDS research.

RuPaul's memoir The House of Hidden Meanings is scheduled to be released on March 5, 2024.

Subscribe to EW's Quick Drag podcast for recaps of RuPaul's Drag Race, including reactions from the cast, special guests, and more.

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