Originally created to showcase iconic costumes from RuPaul’s Drag Race, Out of the Closet (OOTC) has evolved as a YouTube series by offering a deeper connection to the queens and their artistry, allowing them to share on a more personal level. More than just fashion, OOTC continues the human stories beyond Drag Race, exploring how these LGBTQ icons’ lives grow and change after the show.
YouTube was the ideal platform to take audiences deeper. Rather than creating short promotional content, Out of the Closet was designed as an evergreen, personality-driven series that could give fans the time and space to hear queens tell their own stories while showcasing the details of their wardrobes and creative processes.
Our goals were to deepen the relationship between Drag Race fans and the queens they love, introduce audiences to new dimensions of familiar personalities, and create a format that could live beyond a single season or episode. We also aimed to build a highly visual, bingeable YouTube series that could generate conversation and encourage fans to engage with the queens' stories, fashion, and artistry long after the episodes premiered. Ultimately, OOTC is not only about fashion, but truly a continuation of the innately human stories that are sampled on Drag Race.
Going into Season 9 of Out of the Closet, our aim was to continue deepening fans’ connections with iconic queens from the RuPaul’s Drag Race franchise by giving audiences an intimate look at the stories behind their lives, wardrobes, and most memorable looks. The series was designed specifically for YouTube, giving us the space to slow down and let the queens tell their stories in their own words. Each episode combines conversational interviews with detailed looks at the queen’s wardrobe, creating a format that is both highly entertaining and deeply personal. Queens walk audiences through meaningful pieces from their collections, sharing the stories, memories, inspirations, and cultural references attached to them.
Season 9 featured beloved queens including Sasha Colby, Jaida Essence Hall, and Nymphia Wind, giving audiences the chance to hear the stories behind some of the most memorable looks from the Drag Race runway and beyond. The series also uncovered unexpected personal stories, from Sasha sharing the gown she wore when she won Miss Continental, to Jaida revealing that she purchased a look once owned by Megan Thee Stallion, to Nymphia recounting her experience meeting the president of Taiwan.
A major challenge was that each episode took place inside the queen’s home. We had to transform six very different personal spaces into functional interview and filming locations while preserving the authenticity and personality that made each home—and each queen—unique. Our team adapted camera setups, lighting, staging, and production plans to each individual space rather than forcing every episode into the same visual template. This allowed the homes themselves to become part of the storytelling.
A unique element of Season 9 was that three episodes featured queens who currently perform in RuPaul’s Drag Race Live! in Las Vegas. Covering these queens gave us an opportunity to showcase how the Drag Race franchise has grown beyond the television series into a larger live entertainment experience, creating new career opportunities for its queens and new ways for fans to engage with them. It also allowed Out of the Closet to capture how the art and performance of drag continues to evolve under the Drag Race umbrella. By bringing audiences into the homes and lives of queens who are also performing for fans onstage in Las Vegas, the series reflected the continued growth of both the franchise and the community that has grown around it.
Bringing the series to life also required extensive coordination across talent, production, editorial, and crew. Scheduling was one of our biggest challenges, as we coordinated multiple queens with demanding schedules while simultaneously aligning directors, producers, camera teams, and other crew members. We built detailed production schedules, maximized each shoot day, and remained nimble when talent or crew availability shifted. This careful planning allowed us to maintain the quality and intimacy of the series without compromising its creative vision.
Season 9 of Out of the Closet was met with a strong fan response, with viewers excited to hear the stories behind looks they already knew and loved. The season consistently performed well on YouTube, with individual episodes reaching 142,000+ views, 2.4 million impressions, and 5,000+ likes.
The response showed us that fans wanted more than just a look at what queens were wearing; they wanted to know the stories, memories, and personal meaning behind the clothes. That was the goal of the series from the start, and the engagement confirmed that the format was connecting with audiences.
The success of Season 9 also reinforced Out of the Closet as a strong, repeatable format for the franchise, giving us a way to keep introducing fans to new sides of queens they already love.
