Bob The Drag Queen is getting ready to head out on the road with Madonna on her The Celebration Tour, but he’s also busy with his own projects as well. The beloved drag performer and winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race spoke to Attitude magazine about his new comedy special, the tour, and his relationship with the pop icon, and he revealed that yes, he’s shown her one of the most shocking moments from the RuPaul’s Drag Race runway.
In the chat, Bob stated the he “did once show her a clip of Drag Race when all the queens were dressed in kimonos.” While some might see the episode as odd or even find it uncomfortable, Madonna reacted well to the many homages paid to her. “She thought it was pretty funny” the champion admitted.
The clip that Bob showed the Grammy winner was from an episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race that included a Madonna-inspired runway challenge. The contestants all had to pick an iconic look from Madonna’s time in the spotlight and showcase their own version of it on the runway, which is a challenge that has happened in the past with a focus on other stars.
Four contestants, Thorgy Thor, Derrick Barry, Kim Chi, and Naomi Smalls, all wore kimonos as part of the challenge. They were all referencing her “Nothing Really Matters” music video, which famously featured Madonna in a kimono at a time when cultural appropriation wasn’t as much of an issue that people got called out for as it is today. Immediately after the episode aired, many fans of the show referred to the moment as “kimono gate.”
Bob has referenced this interaction with Madonna before. In a separate chat he had on his Sibling Rivalry podcast, which he co-hosts with fellow RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Monét X Change, Bob stated that when he showed this clip to Madonna, her main question to him was why he chose to recreate her 2013 GLAAD Media Awards protest look, which featured a Boy Scout uniform.
Of all the many looks she’s turned out throughout her career, why pick that one, which is fairly straightforward, and very masculine? Bob explained that he loved the look and believed it was a great choice. He then proudly told Madonna that he had won the challenge that week, thanks in part to the Boy Scout outfit.
Bob is set to open for Madonna when her The Celebration Tour begins in October in London. The run of shows was supposed to begin in America this summer, but weeks before it commenced, Madonna was rushed to the hospital with a bacterial infection, which delayed the start of the venture.
The founders of the legendary Miss Adams Morgan Pageant talk about how D.C.'s largest drag event has evolved over 37 years.
By John Riley Photographs from the 1998 to 2024 pageants courtesy of the Dupont Social Club
October 1, 2025
"The whole Miss Adams Morgan Pageant really started by accident," says Steven Brandt, a board member of the Dupont Social Club, which organizes the annual drag pageant, now a fixture on many D.C. residents' calendars.
Brandt recalls that he and his now-husband, Rick Boylan, were celebrating Halloween in drag with friends when, on their way to a piano bar, walking through Dupont Circle, they were accosted by a group of teenagers.
"It was raining," recalls Brandt. "They ripped my wig off and threw it in a puddle, spewing all kinds of hatefulness. After that, we decided we needed a place to be able to go in drag if we wanted. It was maybe only the first or second time we'd been in drag, but I was so enraged by the experience that I kept saying over and over, 'We've got to...This isn't right.'"
Harvard University has drawn criticism from conservatives after announcing that Tufts professor Kareem Khubchandani -- who performs and occasionally lectures in drag as "LaWhore Vagistan" -- will serve as a visiting associate professor in its Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality department.
The visiting professorship was established through an endowment from members of the Harvard Gender & Sexuality Caucus, the university's LGBTQ alumni group. It was created to bring in scholars focused on issues related to sexual minorities and sexuality.
Khubchandani is scheduled to teach two courses during the 2025-2026 academic year: "Queer Ethnography," in the fall semester, and "RuPaulitics: Drag, Race, and Desire" in the spring semester, focusing on the cultural influence of the show RuPaul's Drag Race.
Fashion designer Connor Ives says his now-iconic "Protect the Dolls" T-shirt -- first worn during the finale of his Fall/Winter 2025 ready-to-wear show in London -- has since raised more than $600,000 for the nonprofit Trans Lifeline. The design employs a decades-old phrase calling for solidarity with and protection of transgender women.
The shirt wasn’t originally intended as part of the collection. As Ives told The New York Times in April, he simply wanted "a T-shirt that says something" for the show, using the message as a call for solidarity with transgender people at a time when governments in the U.K. and U.S. were seeking to roll back rights.
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