Michelle Visage


Michelle Visage is an American Radio DJ, singer, actress, media personality, television host and show girl.
Originally gaining recognition as a member of the band Seduction, she earned five singles with the group that charted on the Billboard Hot 100 before reaching the top of the dance charts in 1993 as lead vocalist in The S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M.. She co-hosted The RuPaul Show from 1996 to 1998, alongside frequent collaborator RuPaul. After working as a radio DJ across the country from 1996 to 2011, she returned to television in 2011 on the American reality competition series RuPaul's Drag Race, where she has served as a permanent judge since the show's third season. She has also served as a judge on each season of its spin-off series, RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars and RuPaul's Drag Race UK.
She served as a judge on the first two seasons of Ireland's Got Talent from 2018 to 2019, as a contestant on the fifteenth series of Celebrity Big Brother, and participated in series 17 of Strictly Come Dancing in the UK on the BBC.
On stage, Visage made her West End debut in Everybody's Talking About Jamie in 2018. Her first book, The Diva Rules, was published in 2015.
In 2019, she received her first Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Competition Program, after becoming a producer of Drag Race starting from its eleventh season.

Early life

Visage grew up in New Jersey, was adopted and was aware of this from an early age. She attended South Plainfield High School in South Plainfield, New Jersey, graduating in 1986. She then moved to New York and attended the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in Manhattan for two years. When Visage was 16 she won a Madonna look-alike competition. Growing up, Visage looked up to Madonna, Belinda Carlisle, Pat Benatar, Stevie Nicks, Cyndi Lauper and Dale Bozzio. Visage's mother died when she was 30. Shortly after finishing her studies she stayed in New York City to pursue a career as an actress.
In New York she was active in the club scene and her mother, Arlene, even gave her a fake ID so she could make connections to help further her career. Visage became prominent in the New York ball scene and learned voguing from various people including Willi Ninja. She also became involved with Cesar Valentino and the pair appeared voguing together on the television show The Latin Connection in 1988, which they said was the first time voguing had appeared on national TV.
Michelle adopted her surname, Visage, after gaining the nickname "cara" from the people she spent time with in the New York ball scene. However, because people pronounced it incorrectly she decided to change it to "visage", a name she has stuck with. Visage also met her future friend and co-star RuPaul for the first time in the late 1980s, when she attended club nights and parties hosted by Susanne Bartsch. In 1989, Visage performed at "The Love Ball", which was organised by Bartsch as a benefit for the Design Industries Foundation For AIDS. It is said that The Love Ball is where Madonna first witnessed voguing, the inspiration for her song "Vogue". However, participating in New York night life was not Visage's sole occupation and during the day she worked as a receptionist at the shop Casablanca and Fundamental Things in the New York garment district.

Career

Music recording and music videos

Visage auditioned and won a place for Seduction, an R&B and dance vocal trio assembled by Robert Clivilles and David Cole that signed with A&M Records in 1990. The group had several hits, the most famous being "Two to Make It Right". After the group's breakup, Visage collaborated with the freestyle dance act TKA as a guest vocalist on the song "Crash ". Visage provided lead vocals and was the recording artist of another dance act assembled by Clivilles and Cole, The S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M. The song "It's Gonna Be a Lovely Day", which was a cover version of the Bill Withers song "Lovely Day", was included on the soundtrack to The Bodyguard. "It's Gonna Be a Lovely Day" became a No. 1 dance single and peaked at No. 34 on the Billboard Hot 100 in January 1993.
Visage has also been featured on several of RuPaul's music albums, and appears in the music videos for "New York City Beat" and "From Your Heart", which originally premiered on RuPaul's Green Screen Christmas Special, and were later uploaded to World of Wonder's YouTube channel. Visage has also made guest appearances in the videos for RuPaul's songs "Glamazon", "Responsitrannity", "The Beginning" and "Nothing for Christmas".

Radio and podcasts

Visage was the co-host of The Jamz Session on Hot 92 Jamz in Los Angeles between 2002 and 2005.
In 2005, Visage returned to New York City, where she served as co-host of The Morning Mix on WNEW-FM until December 2006. She also hosted on Sirius Satellite Radio's The Beat 66 from 2003 to 2006 On March 12, 2007, she became a co-host of the morning show on SUNNY 104.3 in West Palm Beach, Florida. On January 10, 2011, she joined 93.9 MIA in Miami as the host of the new MIA Morning Show. She left Miami and MIA in December 2011, moving back to Los Angeles.
Visage started co-hosting the weekly podcast on April 9, 2014. The pair interview celebrities and discuss many topics ranging from their personal lives to RuPaul's Drag Race. The podcast won a 2018 Webby Award.

Television

Visage has worked with RuPaul on a variety of television shows throughout her career. In 1996, she became the co-host of RuPaul's VH1 talk show The RuPaul Show. She also co-hosted WKTU's morning show with RuPaul from 1996 to 2002. And when Ru began casting judges for season one of RuPaul's Drag Race he invited Visage to become a permanent member of the show. At the time she was on a five-year contract with a CBS radio station in West Palm Beach and after asking her boss if she could join the show he said no, which Visage put down to the show's links with the LGBT community.
Two years later Visage was contacted by RuPaul again and invited to appear on season three of the show. After her boss once again said she was not able to appear, she was persuaded by her friend Leah Remini to contact CBS officials who allowed her to join the show as a judge. So on January 24, 2011, Visage debuted as a permanent judge, along with Santino Rice and Billy B, on season three of RuPaul's Drag Race, replacing Merle Ginsberg. She has also appeared on all four seasons of the spin-off show, RuPaul's Drag Race: All-Stars, and RuPaul's Drag Race UK, which began airing on BBC Three in 2019.
On January 7, 2015, Visage became one of the contestants on the fifteenth series of the British reality series, Celebrity Big Brother on Channel 5. On February 6, 2015, Visage left the house in fifth place. Since leaving the house she has appeared on some episodes of Celebrity Big Brother's Bit on the Side, a companion show that airs straight after Celebrity Big Brother.
Visage has made several other TV appearances including hosting VH1's red carpet coverage of the 1998 Grammys and in 2002, Grease 25th-anniversary re-release party. On May 13, 2017, she and Ross Mathews were the commentators for Logo TV's coverage of the Live Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest. And most recently she has appeared as a judge on the first two seasons of Ireland's Got Talent, the first of which began airing on TV3 in February 2018.
On August 5, 2019, it was announced that Visage would be taking part in the seventeenth series of Strictly Come Dancing in the UK on the BBC. On September 7, it was confirmed that she was partnered with Giovanni Pernice.
;*Green number indicates Michelle & Giovanni were at the top of the leaderboard.
;*Red number indicates Michelle & Giovanni were at the bottom of the leaderboard.

Theatre

Visage performed in her West End debut as "Miss Hedge" in Everybody's Talking About Jamie between October 18, 2018 and January 26, 2019.

Personal life

In her early years, Visage suffered from an eating disorder which she says began when she was around 13 years old and continued into her adult life. On of What's the Tee?, her podcast with Ru Paul, Visage says that as an adult, she has had sex with both men and women. "I've been with women; I've had sex with women," she says. "All of it. All of it. Hands, items...not food, no. I don't do the food thing.... But I realized I never wanted to have a relationship...it was just sexual for me, 'cause women know what women want—so I understand it—but...or there'd be a man involved, but it was never...I never had a relationship, um, never been offered one, to be honest … so I've never been tempted to be solely that, but I think women are very sexy and sensual and beautiful, so I can still look at a woman and say, 'She's hot.'"
She now lives in California with her husband, David Case, and her two daughters, Lillie and Lola. On November 10, 2015, she published her first book, The Diva Rules. In late 2019, the book was released in Swedish through the rainbow company Tallbergs Förlag.
In April 2019, Visage revealed she had Hashimoto's disease, which led to getting her trademark breast implants removed.

Discography

Albums

Singles

Guest appearances

Filmography

Awards and Nominations

YearAward ShowCategoryWorkResultNotes
2015The Icon AwardsStraight Ally AwardHerself
2018Webby AwardsBest Host RuPaul: What's The Tee?as co-host
2019Critic's Choice Real TV AwardsFemale Star of the YearHerself
2019Primetime Emmy AwardOutstanding Competition ProgramRuPaul's Drag Raceas producer
2020 Producers Guild of America AwardOutstanding Producer of Game & Competition TelevisionRuPaul's Drag Raceas producer
2020Primetime Emmy AwardOutstanding Competition ProgramRuPaul's Drag Raceas producer
2020BAFTA AwardBest Reality and Constructed FactualRuPaul's Drag Race UKas producer
2020British LGBT AwardsDeutsche Bank – Celebrity AllyHerself