Whether on stage delivering comedy zingers or selling prime real estate during the day, Ruby Dickulous is paving her own path. So much so, she holds the distinction of being the first-ever drag queen real estate broker to be featured in full glam on HGTV in an episode of House Hunters (aptly titled “The Queen of House Hunting”)! I sat down with this Texan real estate titan to dish on all things drag, why she doesn’t see a competition series in her future, & the queen that inspired her to push on to blaze her own trail in the industry.
Michael Cook: So, how was your Pride? Definitely a bit of a different one for many of us this year..
Ruby Dickulous: It was good. Mostly the biggest highlight was it was on Jeff Lewis Live show last week on Sirius XM in Los Angeles. I was in Los Angeles for a week, staying in a mansion in the Hollywood Hills.
MC: How was appearing on Jeff Lewis Live? He definitely knows how to get the most out of his guests!
RD: It was so good, it was’s great. I actually spoke about about dating a man acquitted of murderer.
MC: Now that’s an interesting story, tell me more..
RD: I dated this guy and after seven years found out, that he had been accused of killing someone that looked just like me & was tried for murder and acquitted. So I got to tell that story to all of Jeff’s fans.
MC: You are absolutely nothing if not unpredictable, and that kind of is an ongoing theme in your career. What has it been like watching yourself blow up like this?
RD: Well, it’s not how I envisioned it. Yeah. I was I was a trailblazer. I thought I would be the first & I’d be in my own lane. So, yeah, it feels weird. It’s a dream come true, for sure. I am very grateful for the opportunities. I’m grateful for people to finally figure out who I am before I die, and. Yeah, it’s very surreal
I kind of make a joke that it’s like, I’m not ungrateful for it, but it’s like TV and radio doesn’t have the same kick. It had twenty years ago. You know, you’re like, I’m doing it, guys. And then there’s like the eight-year old on YouTube making $10 million a year.
MC: What came first for you, your career in drag or in real estate?
RD: The real estate. When I was a kid, I did try to sell my family’s farm. As with most gays, I don’t want to live in the country. I lived in a small town, Van, Texas, which is about an hour east of Dallas and I was just miserable in the country. I wanted to go back to Corpus Christi, which I thought was the only big city in the U.S. At twelve, I took Polaroid photos and I posted signs all all around this tiny little town that my grandfather discovered oil in. So they all called my parents immediately & said ”You’re selling? And they’re like, “What? Who did this?” And I’m like, “I did.”
I did get in trouble for it, but I was still determined, so I rode my four-wheeler back into the town and talked to the only broker who was like, my third cousin. I learned about real estate development. I was like, “What does it cost to put streets and electricity and make those to where I can put, like one acre house tracks on”? I ended up designing a master plan community at twelve years old and bringing it back to my parents and was like, “Hey, how about this?” We’ll triple our money, we’ll get out of here, and I get to go back to the beach and we can dump this crap hole in the country”. It worked and we kept it for several years, but we did move back to Corpus after that.
MC: When did drag enter your life, how did that happen?
RD: I guess around the same age, around twelve, I was coming into my own; I always loved drag. My Grandma was a drag queen. My grandfather was a closet cross-dresser, and so there was a lot of wigs and costume jewelry. So then I decided to try to be like Grandma, because I idolized her, which her name was Ruby. I ended up putting him on a wig and some costume jewelry and some makeup and going out to entertain my mom and my aunt and my grandmother, and my mother just shoved us in the car and was like, “We’re going home now”!
Come to find out, my step grandfather was cross dressing privately, and she knew about it, she was so embarrassed, and thought that he was influencing me. I always say, I would have done drag a lot sooner, but there was so much shame attached to it because of that situation. Her stepdad, who she hated, was a cross dresser, she didn’t understand it, it was the AIDS crisis. I give her compassion for that, but, you know, this day and age, that wouldn’t fly. I didn’t actually professionally start doing drag until I was in my thirties because of that shame.
MC: Many people think that if you don’t appear on a reality competition drag seres you won’t be successful and you have proven that theory wrong. How does it feel to have made your own lane?
RD: Yeah, that was always my goal. I’ve been in development deals for over ten years. I was in development under contract for a year and a half at a time, probably a year at a time than a year and a half, and it’s spaced out. So over ten years, there was four development deals, and nothing could ever get picked up. Nobody wanted to touch a drag queen realtor.
It originally started out as a scripted comedy. I just thought it was a funny sketch. It was an idea I came up with overnight, and then the reality TV started coming at me, and I’m like, “Well, I’m not ready. This isn’t a reality. It’s a comedy”. Then over a decade, it’s weird how I kind of shifted my life going, “Well I know reality company’s going to come around the corner. Why don’t I go out and do this and make it my reality?” So, actually, reality TV made me look inward and make it my reality when it wasn’t the case, and then it was. To answer your question, I think creating your own path and paving your own lane and building your own stage has always been my life’s message, and I just stuck to it, and it paid off.
MC: What has been your favorite part of getting to show people the person behind the stage persona and kind of getting them to see a drag queen not as a drag queen, but doing something different.
RD: think that’s been always my message. Mine was shielded with so much shame that I was like, I want this to be respectable. I want this to not just be dancing for dollar bills.” I don’t want this to be park and bark or lip syncing to other people’s art. I really wanted to create my own world; so it just took a while for everyone else to move in.
There were times that I was ready to give up after like the third development deal and I just felt like I should have gone on Drag Race and I should have just done what everybody else is doing cause I know I’m talented. There were a few famous friends and queens along the way that were like, “Don’t give up, girl, you have something special. You have something unique, don’t quit. That’s the key to life, don’t quit. Everybody else will.
MC: Do you think if Drag Race came calling now, would do it, or you would say, I’m still going to pave my own way?
RD: I think I pave my own way. I think Drag Race is deluded. It’s like, if you give everybody a million dollars, you wouldn’t have a million dollars. I think that not everybody’s a winner. I think it’s a tired format. I haven’t watched the show since Season 10. I don’t know anything about the show.
I know when Bianca (Del Rio) won, that was, like, when I really felt like I was seen because I was doing stand up in drag before she even got on the show. I knew of her through Fire Island and we have a lot of mutual friends. When she won and did a standup tour, I was like, “That’s what I want”. I wanted to do stand up in theaters on tour. Bianca was the first one, I was like, that’s the template for me, I would say. In hindsight, I would say what Trixie (Mattel) did with her career was definitely more what I would have done with that platform.
MC: Let’s manifest. If you could have you could pave your career the next few steps, what do you want them to be?
RD: I think I kind of set set in the stone, my drag/real estate. I think the next steps for me is really connecting with the audiences and that’s on the road. I toured a little bit of my one-woman show last night last year to PV & PTown; I got to do Fire Island, I did shows like I normally do, but I did I did it on my own terms on my own show. I produced, I directed, I did everything. I think that’s where I would see it. I really enjoyed that, connecting with audiences on the road. I’d love to see a full series of a TV show. I’d love to see drag real estate really become a thing on, you know, Netflix, a network, something big like that, and then touring. That’s kind of where I would manifest.
MC: We all have had interesting, intimate conversations with people. Is there a conversation that you had with somebody where they gave you a piece of advice or said something and it just kind of stopped you short and you still reference it?
RD: I don’t know if that the conversation was recent, but the message that has been there, and that’s just Lady Bunny. She’s always been so supportive, she always saw something in me when nobody else did. When I wanted to quit, or I wanted to do this, I was always like, “No, Bunny didn’t quit”. I think it was more her living by example. Her talking about her getting sober for eight years and things like that. When I saw Bunny in 1999 at Wigstock, it was like, “She is my grandmother in drag”.
That’s how my grandmother talks. That’s her sense of humor, my grandmother was a whore. Like, she.. she embodied my grandmother, and she still does, like, her sense of humor and style and Southern wit. So I would say of any conversation or anything that kept me going would be my friendship with Lady Bunny and just watching her as an entertainer.
Follow Ruby Dickulous on Instagram
