Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 14: RuPaul

Episode Date: May 12, 2016

When he was 28 years old, RuPaul Andre Charles found himself broke and living on his little sister's couch in Los Angeles. "It was a really, really, really dark, dark period for me." That’s when RuPaul, now the world's most famous drag queen, started his meditation practice. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It kind of blows my mind to consider the fact that we're up to nearly 600 episodes of this podcast, the 10% happier podcast. That's a lot of conversations. I like to think of it as a great compendium of, and I know this is a bit of a grandiose term, but wisdom. The only downside of having this vast library of audio is that it can be hard to know where to start. So we're launching a new feature here, playlists, just like you put together a playlist of your favorite songs.

Back in the day, we used to call those mix tapes. Just like you do that with music, you can do it with podcasts. So if you're looking for episodes about anxiety, we've got a playlist of all of our anxiety episodes. Or if you're looking for how to sleep better, we've got a playlist of all of our anxiety episodes, or if you're looking for how to sleep better, we've got a playlist for that. We've even put together a playlist of some of my personal favorite episodes. That was a hard list to make. Check out our playlists at 10%.com slash playlist. That's 10% all one word spelled out. dot com slash playlist singular.

Let us know what you think. We're always open to tweaking how we do things and maybe there's a playlist we haven't thought of. Hit me up on Twitter or submit a comment through the website. Before we start, if this is your first time listening to the 10% happier podcast, A, welcome. And B, if you like the show, do me a favor. Take a second and subscribe, rate the podcast,

and if you really want to hook me up, tell some friends about how they too can find us. Now here's the show. Hey, this is Dan Harris. I am a fidgety skeptical newsman who had a panic attack live on Good Morning America. That led me to something I always thought was ridiculous. Meditation. I wrote a book

about it called 10% Happier, started an app, and now I'm launching this podcast to try to figure out whether there's anything beyond 10%. Basically, here's what I'm obsessed with. Can you be an ambitious person and still strive for enlightenment? Whatever that means. When I learned that my next guest was a meditator, I was surprised in a very, very pleasant way. It's RuPaul. He is easily the world's most famous drag queen.

He's been a household name since the 1990s. And as I've discovered in researching him and reading his autobiography, reading his interviews and watching his reality competition show, which he has on logo, and is called Rupal's Drag Race. He is an extremely thoughtful person about the mind, and for lack of a better word, spirituality. So Rupal, great to meet you. Hey! Coming on.

My pleasure. My pleasure. Podcast listeners, you may notice a lot of background noise. That's because we are in Rupal's pop-up shop in a mall in Los Angeles, which is filled with RuPaul chocolate, which is delicious, and a lot of his gorgeous brown gowns and t-shirts, etc. etc. So just in case you're wondering about the back row notes, that's why that is. Here's the question I ask everybody first. When and how and why did you start meditating? I understood at a very early age that this realm that we see with our eyes and we see on television

isn't the only one. I learned that early on and we talked earlier about this. I was about 14. Usually things these these happenings in a human's life happen at 7, 14, 21, 28, which is a huge one and then so on and so forth. But about 14 was a real breakthrough for me. I understood that this wasn't all there was. And I wanted to understand what that was. My first, which drove me into hallucinogenic is when I first started finding that. I thought, okay, and I gotta tell you.

You sure you're taking acid? Yes, yes. At 14? Yes. Really? No, not actually at 21 is when I started taking acid. At 14 I started doing pills and smoking weed. I was actually smoking weed, I was 10 years old.

Wow, where were your parents? Good question! Where were they? Actually, my mother, my father, my mother and father split up when I was seven. And my mother sort of stayed in her room for about two years. So for those two years, she was just in her own place. And we didn't see her, she was doing her things, she was heartbroken. So we were left to ourselves, my sister's and I, but no, I was, that's where I first, that's where I first went.

So when you sort of entry level into other realms is through, you know, street drugs, you know. What do you mean by other realms? Other realms. You know, this table we're leaning on looks like it's solid, but it's actually not. It's energy vibrating at a high rate. If you go to a quantum physics level. Sure, sure.

But just because your eyes, you know, when a plane takes off into the horizon, it looks like the plane is getting smaller and smaller. Is the plane getting smaller? No. No. It's just from where you're standing. So I understood that from the perspective I had,

at 14, was limited. I understood that. And so that was my first introduction into understanding there were other realms. You were pretty deep 14-year-olds. I mean, I was playing video games and trying to get girls to kiss me at 14. Well, I think that if you've been through a lot of trauma,

if your heart has been broken by the world and you understand that the world is the hoax and all illusion You you have to seek something you become a seeker and you you are looking for something and that's that's what I found And you don't honestly you don't have to look far to find this information It's not that it's not that so far beyond our comprehension even at 14 What are the when you talk about trauma, are you talking about the acrimonies divorce to your parents or being a gay kid in a world that was not as accepting as the world is now to all of the above?

The gay thing is probably the smallest part of that equation. It was the parents and it was also the world. I actually gave the keynote address at Dragcon, my convention that just this past weekend. I talked about Mother's Day and I talked about my mother and how she really died of a broken heart. Not my father didn't break her heart, the world broke her heart. She was a sweet sensitive soul who, at five, she told me, she said,

Rue, don't take life to G.D. seriously. And she said, Rue, you are too sensitive. It took me many years to understand that she was trying to protect me from her own storyline. She didn't want me to be broken-hearted by the world the way she had. I talked about that in the keynote speech, but the biggest hurdle I had to overcome at that age was understanding that the world was hypocritical. You know, as a little boy, I didn't really fit in, and it's just nothing new, but I knew I was smart enough to figure out what it would take for me to fit in. So I studied our society, I studied what everybody was doing so I could figure out how to make it work.

Well, I studied it and the information I got back from my findings was that it is BS. It's all an illusion, it's hypocritical. It doesn't have, there isn't a standard, it's all superficial. So no, thank you, ma'am. I want nothing to do with your fitting in. So I found a place for myself outside of society.

And at 12, I remember watching Monipython on PBS in San Diego, and I thought, there's my tribe. That's it. The irreverence, the people who are making fun of identity, just drag, they're out of drag. They're making fun of the Bible. They're making fun of religion. They're making fun of everything.

That I knew from that moment on. That was my, that's where I belong. So you realized early on and then had it reinforced through psychedelics that there's more to the world that meets the eye. Yeah. At what point did you start formally meditating? I, I, I, I start formally meditating at 28. There goes those sevens again.

It was a really, really, really dark, dark period for me, dark. I was 28. Didn't have a dime. Prefame. World did not know about RuPaul at this point. That's right. for me, dark. I was 28, didn't have a dime. Pre-fame, world did not know about RuPaul at this point. I had had some local fame in Atlanta, and I had moved up to New York earlier, the year before that, and couldn't get arrested. I couldn't, nothing was happening. So, there was a series of horrible events. I wound up out here in Los Angeles

sleeping on my sister's couch, my baby sister's couch at 28 years old, and it was horrible. So, coming out of that, that's when the meditation started. That's when I attempted to meditate. I really didn't get any good at it until probably about maybe 17 years ago, about 17 years ago, I could get it going. And what kind of meditation are you doing? In the morning. My morning routine, I get up very early, I get up at 4 o'clock in the morning, I get up, I stretch, 55 years old, I got a stretch. You look great, by the way.

Thank you. I pray, I'm not religious, I'm not saying that I'm not religious, but I will pray because the act of prayer deconstructs and overruns the system of my ego. The act of bound down and physically acknowledging that there's something other than me. And my ego immediately goes away. So I pray and then I meditate. So my act of meditation is years ago someone

told me that if you imagine a river that's flowing water by and those are your thoughts and that you, the real you, the eternal you, is actually sitting on the bank, watching the river go by. And that you have no judgment on those thoughts. You allow them, let them come and go. But you are the awareness of your thoughts. You are not your thoughts. So you can let your thoughts happen.

Just know that the real you is the awareness. And that's where that's where that's was a major breakthrough for me with meditation. And sort of floating in that place where you can let go of any judgment of what you're thinking is such. Oh my God, it's such a sanctuary. But can you actually, because I have a lot of time, and I've been meditating only for seven years, but I have a lot of trouble in getting to that place.

You're describing mindfulness, which is the ability to step out of the stream of our thoughts and view it with some non-judgmental remove. But for me, as a crazy person, I get caught up in those thoughts. I thought, it's by on the river, and then I'm off with it. You do not get lost in that way. Oh, no, sometimes it'll catch me and I'll get it

But I just bring myself back. Yeah, I get caught in it. It's That and that's fine. That's completely fine. Have you had formal meditation instruction or because you seem to have Well, I'll just leave it at that. Have you had formal meditation? No, not formal. No. I have a meditation group that I go to at 6.30 in the morning. It's actually five days a week. So there's prayer and meditation in your life on a daily basis? Yes. It's remarkable to me having had my, having been lucky, am I and having been lucky enough to have some a lot of formal meditation training, you're spot on even without it. What you described as just trying to rest in an area that doesn't get caught up in the thoughts, you get caught up, you start again.

That is textbook Buddhist meditation. And yeah, it seems to me that you just kind of came to it on your own. Well, I didn't come to it on my own. You know, I've always been a seeker and I've always read books. Even when I was a kid, I would read, going up in the 70s, they're all these self-help books. And so, California jumped from San Diego. So, there's this vernacular that I grew up with.

And you sort of, you know, all roads led to these self-help books, which always sort of hit upon those elements. So finding Eckhart Tolley years ago really solidified my practice. I really understood what it meant. And it just got me. So it's interesting that you bring up that cartilage, because I read, Eckhart Tolly was really the start for me of finding meditation too.

And I stumbled upon him in 2008, and then went and interviewed him. But here is my beef with him. I kind of make fun of him a little bit in my book, which is that he, and this is not my quote exactly, but a friend of mine has described him as correct about the human situation, but not useful. In that, he doesn't really give you a lot of practical advice for taming the voice in the

head or the ego. But so that's my problem with him. It seems like you haven't run into that problem. Because the solution is this, you allow that voice, that voice doesn't go away, by the way. The voice is always there. It's like in this world we live in, there's ying and yang, black and white, male, female, there are these dualities.

So that voice, that sort of devil on one shoulder and angel on the other, and then you, the completion of the triad, the consciousness of those two elements, you allow them to exist, but you don't act on them. You know, that voice in my head, it comes up all the time. I say, you know, I say that voice, I say, thanks for sharing.

Thanks for sharing. Keep coming back. What is the difference it's made in your life? The difference is I'm able to live, I'm able to come myself. I'm able to not react so drastically to the elements that pop up in life. Traffic, I'm still not so good with. Traffic, that's where the devil on my shoulder really does come up. But what I do is I avoid traffic, is my solution to that. But that's that's what it's done for me. And the bigger the bigger one is that

in that place when I find that place where I am the awareness of my thoughts somehow some divinity. I don't know what it is. I don't need a name for it. Some divinity some clarity comes through. In fact, I can feel my whole body some clarity comes through. In fact, I can feel my whole body aligning. I can feel my body able to repair itself because the blockage of my thoughts or my past or my, but I think my future's going to be,

doesn't exist in this place. And I can feel my body sort of healing itself, repairing itself, being at peace because it doesn't have that blockage. I could be wrong, but that's what I feel like. That's what it's done for me. I think that's awesome. You know, one of the, we talked about this a little bit

before we started rolling, but I admit with some embarrassment that before doing my research on you, I really, you know, we all have cultural blind spots I think of myself as reasonably culturally literate, but the drag world is something that I basically knew nothing about I certainly knew who you are, but I didn't really know anything about the culture and reading about you I realized actually there's a for lack of a better word a major spiritual component to the world of drag and I just want to read you a quote from you,

because I never realized until I read your, now, sadly out of print, autobiography, letting it all hang out, is that that was that's the right name of it. That it is an inner exploration. You say, here I'm quoting, I want to present a whole and complete picture, the Yen, the Yang, the Black, the White,

the Boy, the Girl, the Sain, the Insane, because we are all every man. A rainbow of different roles and different people, exploring the colors in myself and in others, is my life's passion. There is no such thing as normality. Each and every one of us, if we dare to be whole, is a gorgeous peacock. Oh, I love that.

I haven't, honestly, I haven't read that in 20 years. But that's exactly right. I love that. That's exactly right. And so you do think of drag as, you are... years, but that's exactly right. I love that. That's exactly right. And so you do think of drag as you are, I'll read some more quotes about this, but you are really getting at the mystery of identity. Yeah, absolutely. Again, when I was 14 and I realized that it was all a hoax. Then that allowed me, that revelation allowed me to have fun

with it. And the lesson I got from people was that life is not to be taken serious. And that gave me the license to just have fun. Play with all the colors. There are no rules. And you will be unchanged. After this body is gone, who you really are,

is unchanged. It's like that movie. What was it? The Arnold Schwarzenegger movie where the alien comes a predator, where it comes to any, has, unfortunately, the predator is killing people. We are like that. We're come to this planet to experience

what it's like to be human on earth. Of course, once we get here, all these other people say, well, you've got to do this, you've got to join this club, you've got to be this. I understood all of those rules as a hoax, as a illusion, as something that I don't have to pay attention to. I freed myself of that, which allowed me to go and play with all the colors. You know, as a kid, all kids play and they do drag,

they car, I love cars, I do all this, you know, no restrictions. But unfortunately, if you choose that life, there's not a lot of people who do that. Not a lot of people have the hootspa to do, to live from their heart, to express themselves straight from their desires. There's everybody turns into their parents eventually.

I don't think I'm not my parents, that's for sure. I, I, do you, as somebody who is deeply interested in issues of sort of figuring out what this mind and body really is, do you think I am missing out on something because I have never done and probably will never do drag? I think so. I think that there are aspects of your personality that you don't even know about until you get into drag. I've seen straight men get into drag and it's interesting to see what they turn into. Whether they're you know

the coy, because the coy queen or the sexy slut queen or the you know the comedy queen or the you know know, the decular. But what's interesting about that is it's like a guitar playing only one note or a car that's got a gorgeous, beautiful V8 engine that only goes around the neighborhood. You have to explore this life. You owe it to this gift. And I'm looking at you here. You're gorgeous. You got a sexy little body there and you've got good teeth and good hair. You better go get go out. You better drive that car around. Drive down to Baja California. Why don't you? You know?

So there are fundamental aspects of the human experience that I'm missing out on by not exploring all the colors in the rainbow Absolutely me is your argument and what's interesting to me about that is big part because I feel myself Constricting around the idea dressing up and I don't want to do it But a big part of and I would call myself a Buddhist, but not a religious one a Big part of Buddhism is letting go. And it seems to me, in my brief exploration of your world, that a huge part of drag is letting go. Absolutely, because, and I'm not different from a lot

of the kids who come out on RuPaul's Drag Race, or the kids you aren't on the show, who society has said, we don't want you. Once that happens, then these people are able to explore other avenues and make a place for themselves. And they come to this discovery on their own because they've been cast out. And so I think it's so important to do it. It's almost a gift.

It was a blessing for me to be cast out of society. And I have a sense, though, most people like yourself don't do it because you're afraid of what other people would think of. Sure. And when you don't care what other people think of you, that frees you so much. Because being that kid who was set aside

by society, if they don't care about me, I don't have to care about what they think of me. So I'm free to do whatever I want. And, you know, if you're afraid of what your mother or your rabbi or the people in the neighborhood are gonna say about you, you won't do it. This may be worth nothing just because it's my opinion, but I will say just having spent the past hour in your presence, you seem pretty free.

I could be more free. I am pretty free, but I could be more free. I am not that free, you know, in my, I've been with this man for 22 years, but when I was, when I was, you know, in the clubs and hanging out, I was, people still scared me on an intimate level, because being that intimate with people scared me, and it's still scary, because people are, people are, um, effing crazy, you know? And also, I'd be talking about this living in New York,

I still live there, I live here in New York, L about this living in New York. I still live there. I live here in New York, LA, New York. I'm a very sensitive person. I've had to be very, my mother was right. I had to be very careful about it because people I'm around, I take on their energy. I'm a medium. And I have to be careful of who I allow.

And my persona in the media or whatever, even with you, I can protect myself with my persona in the media or whatever, even with you, I can protect myself with my persona. But the truth, my real self, I'm very, very sensitive and I'm an introvert. So I said all that to say, I'm a free person, but I wasn't very free in terms of being intimate with people when I was a kid. I think you've gotten better. I'm probably not. With George, you know, you know, he,

20, you know, I can be myself with him, but it's been very few people I feel like I could do that with. Hey there listeners, while we take a little break here, I want to tell you about another podcast that I think you'll like. It's called How I Built This, where host Guy Razz talks to founders behind some of the world's biggest and most innovative companies, to learn how they built them from the ground up. Guy has sat down with hundreds of founders behind well-known companies like Headspace, Manduka Yoga Mats, Soul Cycle, and Kodopaxi,

as well as entrepreneurs working to solve some of the biggest problems of our time. Like developing technology that pulls energy from the ground to heat in cool homes, or even figuring out how to make drinking water from air and sunlight. Together, they discussed their entire journey from day one, and all the skills they had to learn along the way, like confronting big challenges, and how to lead through uncertainty. So, if you want to get inspired and learn how to think like an entrepreneur, check out how I built this, wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and add

free on the Amazon or Wondery app. What do you think is the role of drag in culture? You've compared it to the shamans, to the witch doctors. And the court jester? Yeah. It's to remind people to not take life too seriously. Not take life too seriously, which is huge. And by life, you mean sort of the social and cultural

constructs that are put upon us? Exactly. Exactly. All of that. What upon us. Exactly, exactly. All of that. What people have to say, whether you're driving the right car, does these pants make my ass look fat? And yes, ma'am, it does make your ass look fat.

And how la Loya, because I love a fat ass. Let me ask you about another Rupal quote. I talk a lot in this podcast and in my book about kindness, not in the sort of empty platitudes sense of the term, but as a skill that you can develop. And you actually have a great quote about it. You said, being kind illustrates the highest level of consciousness and deliberate optimism. Being kind says, I know the material world is an illusion,

and I choose to recognize the beauty, innocence, and the source in everyone. Oh my God, I haven't heard that in years. I'm tearing up, I'm hearing that. I haven't read this book since I wrote it. I read it then, but I haven't read this book since I wrote it. I read it then, but I haven't read it since. That's beautiful because it's the same as the Pollyanna. People thought that Pollyanna was just a dummy because she didn't see the darkness.

She saw the darkness. She knows it very well. But she chose to see the beauty in a situation. The child of God is innocent. Is there in the night of the Gwana, the Tennessee Williams play, I know the movie, I've never seen the play. There's a scene where Deborah Carr comes Richard Burton's character, who's going to commit suicide.

And she ties him up and gives him some tea that combs him down. And he asks her, how is it that you know so much about the dark night of the soul? And she says, oh, I know, I call it the blue devil. I've been there. And she turns away from him and heads towards the camera, I'm getting choked up thinking about. and she turns away from him and heads towards the camera, I'm getting choked up thinking about it. And she says, the way that you overcome that dark night is you persevere. You stand in a foundation

because those dark clouds will pass. And it's such a beautiful thing because she acknowledges the darkness. But she chooses to stand strong and let it go past her. So with the kindness, it's not being ignorant. It's actually being very aware of what's there and what you do in the face of this darkness. And everybody sees it, everybody has it.

That's the kind of kind of I'm talking about. You just think of talking to you and reading what you've written and what you've said. Because there's a kind of dichotomy. Because in the one hand, you have this very optimistic view about self-improvement, you talk a lot about love in the world, which I want to ask you about. But you also have a kind of fundamentally dark view of the cosmos, too.

How do you square that? Oh, no, because we live in a culture, our world is polar opposites. That's how electricity works. That's how children are created with the man and a female. I can absolutely love something, love it so much. And at the very same time, hate it, hate it, hate it. That is what we are.

And that is that being in that position is the true, true existence. There is no, it's right or wrong. They coexist at the very same time. I'm acknowledging both. I choose to live in the light. I choose to focus on that the child of God is innocence. But that's not to say that the child of God is not also guilty.

Because that both are correct. Half will have empty. Both are correct. One will bring joy. One will bring you pain. At the end of every episode of RuPaul's Drag Race, which is now finishing its eighth season, and enormously popular, the most popular show on the Lobo Network, You say, and I may get this quote, incorrect, but if you can't love yourself,

how you're gonna love somebody else. Yes. Is that just a thing you say, or do you actually mean it? I absolutely mean it. I learned that at 14. It was, you know, all of the things that I talk about on the show, all of the things in the books, these are things I learned at 14.

That was my Bar Mitzvah. That was my breaking through. And that was my aha moment. All of these things I understood then. I didn't come up with this stuff. It's not a new philosophy. And not that smart. It's recognizing the tools it takes to navigate this lifetime

because I was looking for the tools. I was looking for it. I thought I could find it in booze and alcohol. I thought I could find it, you know, in becoming famous and rich and famous. None of those things actually do that. They can be fun, but they don't do that. What will do that is understanding fundamentally who you are. Don't forget who you really are and who you really are. A lot of people aren't ready to hear that. Who you really are is your God having an excursion in the human body, experiencing life on this planet. And it's very simple. It's, and once you understand that, you think,

okay, so how do you want to do this? How do you want to do this? I want to, if I had, actually Alan Watts has this thing, what this lecture he talks about, what if you had the ability to choose what your dream was every night before you go to bed, you get to choose what your dream was. And then after about two, and you, of course, you'd be a princess, or you'd be a king, or a, the he-man. After about two months, you'd be a princess or you'd be a king or a the he-man after about two months You'd be like that's kind of boring Why don't we do it random? Why don't we do it random where I don't know what I'm gonna be And it because you know that every morning you wake up

You'd be yourself old self again. There would be no consequences. You'd be your say that's what we're doing That's what it is So when you look at it that way you go be like, well, that's what we're doing. That's what it is. So when you look at it that way, you go, oh, OK, I'm going to be a six foot, seven, black, blonde, drag queen who doesn't play by the rules of society or the matrix or all of that stuff doesn't do that, but somehow it's gonna kick a hole in the hole existing in this set. That's what I wanted to. I want to do that. Would you use the word God? What do you mean? It doesn't have to, I

don't know what it is. I don't care. It doesn't matter. It's that thing that thing that cannot be, that thing that cannot be described. That's the thing. It's, it's that thing. I don't know what it's, I don't care. I don't need to know. I don't need to know. And Wayne, we just want to give back to loving yourself. When you talk about that, what, what, it sounds easier said than done. Yeah, no matter if you're parents didn't love you or the world doesn't love you. How do you actually do that? It's a practice you, you, uh, fake it till you make it. It is a practice every day. That's why I first need to, um, um, disengage my ego in the morning when I pray and when

I meditate. I need to first align myself with that thing which cannot be described. Some call it God-Echartoli talks about calling it being, you know, because nobody can sort of put a ownership on the word being. First aligning yourself with that, remembering who you are, who you really are, and you are God's gift to this world, is what you are. So start there. And then you go about this life with following your heart,

which is like a your own GPS system. It's like saying, what do you like? You like dark chocolate? Or do you like milk chocolate? You like to dance? Do you like to laugh? Well, life has a lot of things. You like water, you you like to laugh? Well, life has a lot of things.

You like water, you wanna play with water. So that's where you start. That's how you love yourself. And when you enjoy and follow your own directive, your own GPS system, you can then love yourself and then share that love with other people. In talking to you, it's clear that you had these moments of kind of spiritual, slash psychological breakthroughs

at key junctions in your life where things were at verse 14 when you were having kind of an existential crisis, 28 when you hadn't yet made it and were sleeping on your sister's couch. And then there was another one in the year 2000 where you were already famous, world famous. And you stepped out of the public view. Why did you do that and what were the contents

of that crisis? What's important for any artist to step away from the canvas? And in fact, during the Bush era, the second Bush era, the feeling in our culture was there was a certain hostility out there. And I felt like I had to defend my life in interviews or in just in in in the public. So I thought, you know what? I need to step back. I need to quit drinking and I need I need to quit drinking and I need to reconnect with myself.

I moved out here, I had still other place in New York, but I moved to LA and I had days time parties. I did quit drinking and doing drugs and got to know my nieces and nephew and just got to see myself again because I'm ambitious and for those whole those all those years I hit the big time and I worked I just worked all the time so I needed to do that and in fact Georgia and I had a little meltdown of our relationship, and of course, we've repaired it now, but all of those things happened. Looking back, I realized I needed to do that to understand why I do what I do. In fact, up until that point, my thinking was, if I got rich and famous that will fill that hole that void in my life

Well, of course at the end of you know when I I realized that that wasn't the case But coming and I I got into I got into therapy. I got I got closer into you know What made me tick right so? What you're hearing are people that are... Yeah, there are people outside the window saying, that's RuPaul, and you're not in drag. Well, they know, they know me from the TV show

out of drag, but looking back at that period, it was so good for me to take time away, because what changed, there's a sign going on, we're actually at, it's at Hollywood and Highland here in Los Angeles, where the pop-up store story is so good for me to do that. Because when I came back, my motivation had to do with love and music and laughter. Before, when I wanted to become famous,

I kind of wanted my father's approval. I really did. But I understood after many years that he couldn't see me, he couldn't see me even if there was no way, he wasn't possible for him to see me around still. No, he's dead. Both my parents are dead. Did you ever get his approval?

You know, when you make a lot of money, all sins are forgiven, you know, that's not real approval. That's not a real approval. No, it's not. It's not. And I really understood that he was a figment of my imagination. I have a vast imagination. So I imagine that his betrayal of me, his abandonment of me, he left the home when you were seven or seven. Seven, yeah. But he was really never there. I thought that it was a malicious thought out well plotted attack on me. It wasn't. It had nothing to do with me.

So it took that time away to understand that. So when I did come back, actually, I came back with a movie called Starbooty. Don't watch it. It's a totally rated X. It's a sort of John Waters movie that I produced in the start. It's fabulous, but, by the way, I came back with that. I came back in 04 with a morning drive radio in any W in New York.

And all of those things led to drag race. Rupal, you're a fascinating dude. I've learned a lot from you. As we wind down here any words of wisdom you want to share with either me or the audience? Yeah, the here's some words of wisdom. Don't wear high heels in soggy grass. The bad, bad idea.

Okay. All right. Do we really know anything else that I should know? Well, you know, it's important to live your life. I know that you're afraid of drag. I don't wonder if it's if it's more that you're afraid of what your wife will think and your children or if it's that you'll love it so much you won't come back. I don't know. I don't know. I feel like it's the former, but I don't want to be closed minded and say it's not the latter.

I feel like it's the former. Oh my God, could you imagine you're not coming back? That would require some pretty drastic changes in my life. No, or not. Or not. Well, it would certainly be negotiation with my wife. No, no, listen, it? Well, it's certainly being a negotiation with my wife. Well, no, no, listen, it's the 21st century. You know, maybe she could do it too. Maybe it's a drag family.

You know, a drag family that's, the family of the drags together is a family that slays together. All right. Okay. I'll go home and discuss this with Bianca and see how it flies. I'll let you know. I'll send you an email. Or maybe I'll advise her never to listen to this particular podcast.

Alright, there's another edition of the 10% Happier Podcast. If you like it, I'm going to hit you up for a favor. Please subscribe to it, review it, and rate it. Preferably five stars. I want to also thank the people who produced this podcast, Josh Cohan, Lauren Efron, Sarah Amos, and the head of ABC News Digital, Dan Silver. And hit me up at Twitter, Dan B. Harris. See you next time. Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and ad free on Amazon Music.

Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey. about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com-survey.