While both iterations were underway, RuPaul was also working on a project even more ambitious: new Netflix series AJ and the Queen.
Teaming Ru with writer-director Michael Patrick King (who’s worked on everything from Sex and the City to 2 Broke Girls and the critically acclaimed hit, The Comeback) the show’s somewhat gimmicky premise feels very ‘90s. Glamorous NYC drag queen Ruby Red is scammed by her hunky boyfriend and has to tour the US to recoup the money that was meant to help her open a new club. She’s joined by the feisty kid who lives upstairs, a troubled little girl whose mother is a sex worker fallen on hard times. With a press release for the show namechecking Priscilla Queen of the Desert and Touched By An Angel, you can imagine the feel-good cheese this show is aiming for. But it doesn’t quite get there.