RuPaul Details Why He Likes to “Keep the Boundaries” With His ‘Drag Race’ Colleagues

RuPaul Charles is “Mother Ru” to Drag Race contestants, but when it comes to his coworkers, he keeps himself guarded.

In a new New Yorker profile by Ronan Farrow, who has been a guest judge on All Stars season 7 and Drag Race season 16, the writer pointed out that even while appearing on the show he didn’t get to have “substantive exchanges” with the series’ host until the interview.

In their conversation, the drag icon confirmed that he likes to “keep the boundaries” between panelists and contestants on the show. He shared that a former colleague, who he does not name, had worked with him for decades without them developing a deep friendship.

“We kept a working relationship, we traveled the world together,” Charles explained. “But sometimes I would hear her talking to a friend, and she’d be talking about her latest boyfriend. She never did that with me, because I’m her boss. And the truth is, I don’t want to hear about it. I don’t care about that shit.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Charles discussed his social life, noting that he doesn’t often expand his close knit group of friends. “I meet new people, but like, socially, do I go out to dinner with people, or meet someone and say, ‘Hey, let’s go on a hike?’ Very rarely,” he explained.

He then noted that while he and his husband Georges LeBar have an open marriage, he doesn’t have a “circle of people that I can sort of rely on” for intimacy because of his fame.

Charles, who is famously private, will release his first memoir, The House of Hidden Meanings, on March 4. The memoir’s release comes on the heels of RuPaul’s Drag Race‘s latest Emmy win for outstanding reality competition series and the series’ 16th season.