Audiobook: House of Hidden Meanings: A Memoir

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

From international drag superstar and pop culture icon RuPaul, comes his most revealing to date—a brutally honest and deeply intimate memoir of growing up Black, poor, and queer in a broken home to discovering the power of performance and self-acceptance.

A profound introspection of his life, relationships, and identity, The House of Hidden Meanings is a self-portrait of the legendary icon on the road to global fame and changing the way the world thinks about drag.

Central to RuPaul’s success has been his chameleonic adaptability. From drag icon to powerhouse producer of one of the world’s largest television franchises, RuPaul’s ever-shifting nature has always been part of his brand as both supermodel and super mogul.

Yet that adaptability has made him enigmatic to the public. In this memoir, his most intimate and detailed book yet, RuPaul makes himself truly known.

Stripping away all artifice, RuPaul recounts the story of his life with breath taking clarity and tenderness, bringing his signature wisdom and wit to his own biography. 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 own biography, uncovering new truths and insights in his personal history.

Here in RuPaul’s singular and extraordinary story is a manual for living—a personal philosophy that testifies to the value of chosen family, the importance of harnessing what makes you different, and the transformational power of facing yourself fearlessly.

If we’re all born naked and the rest is drag, then this is RuPaul totally out of drag. This is RuPaul stripped bare.

RuPaul's memoirs, a new addition to the best LGBTQ+ literature, offer a candid look into his life, from his humble beginnings to his rise to the top of the performing arts world. His story is a powerful exploration of race, social issues, and the transformative power of self-acceptance.

For fans of Dawn French (The Twat Files), Simon Doonan (Transformer), Crystal Rasmussen (Diary of a Drag Queen), Matt Haig (Notes on a Nervous Planet), and Barbra Streisand (My Name is Barbra).

HarperCollins 2024