RuPaul may have just stepped in something bad.
The Emmy-winning reality host suggested to NPR’s Terry Gross that he leases mineral rights for his Wyoming/South Dakota ranch to fracking companies. RuPaul owns the ranch with his husband, Georges LeBar.
Gross asked if Ru & Georges raise cattle or horses on the ranch. RuPaul suggested, in the contemporary era, ranches have a different function. “Well, a modern ranch,” RuPaul told Gross, “21st-century ranch, is really land management. It is – you lease the mineral rights to oil companies. And you sell water to oil companies. And then you lease the grazing rights to different ranchers. So it’s land management. Yeah.”
Related: RuPaul’s DragCon canceled over fears of coronavirus
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NPR listeners didn’t take the news lightly. “‘RuPaul is fracking’ is exactly as impossible for my brain to parse as ‘Elizabeth Warren holocaust tattoo’ and yet both are true and both will be forgotten completely by next Sunday,” said user Six Rats in a Trenchcoat.
“I love how RuPaul admitting to fracking is like, only the eighth craziest thing to happen today,” user Patient Zero OnlyFans tweeted.
In light of news that #RuPaul allegedly profits from #fracking on his Wyoming property, we're just going to leave this here: https://t.co/KQzD57tLbk https://t.co/Y4dU7sWMDZ
— Xtra (@XtraMagazine) March 16, 2020
after hearing the phrase "rupaul is fracking" and there being even the smallest element of truth to it was the one thing i needed to fully believe we are no longer connected to any tiny of part of reality
— flo (@flocorf) March 16, 2020
“rupaul is fracking” is exactly as impossible for my brain to parse as “elizabeth warren holocaust tattoo” and yet both are true and both will be forgotten completely by next sunday
— six rats in a trenchcoat (@kimchi_baby_) March 16, 2020
That is it! #Rupaul is #Fracking!!! What reality is this? https://t.co/ZIaIhyxhtg
— Jealous Ltd (@JealousLtd) March 16, 2020
Fracking involves extracting hydrocarbons from minerals like shale to create petrochemicals suitable for synthesizing gasoline or other fossil fuel products. The practice has attracted criticism for environmental concerns, including poisoning of groundwater, causing earthquakes, and contributing to climate change.
Kheft
We all know Mr. RuPaul Charles isn’t perfect. Yes, with the benefit of a fabulous wardrobe and Raven’s amazing makeup skills, Mama Ru looks flawless. Yet the man behind that mask is as flawed as the rest of us. As with all human beings, we need to take the good and the bad, and carefully measure the balance. I can’t support his transphobia. I can’t support his production team’s sloppy vetting of contestants on his show, and have stopped watching season 12 (sorry other queens, but I won’t watch a known predator). I can’t support his stinging remarks to Pearl. And I definitely do not support crimes against Nature like fracking. That said I still enjoy the music, even if it is fluff. I like Ru’s sunny persona. I love the visibility he has brought to drag, and a very large portion of the LGBTQ community. And it cannot be said enough that he looks absolutely smashing in a suit. He is on a human journey like the rest of us, so let’s remember this and encourage him to keep growing. Please cancel that fracking lease RuPaul! Money can always be replaced but Nature can’t.
Countervail
Y’all simmer down. Couple of points.
Just because you lease your mineral right to oil and gas companies doesn’t mean they are actively drilling on your property.
And even if you didn’t lease your mineral rights, all your neighbors in the area would be and your holdout is near pointless. Whatever is happening is happening, is already happening all around you.
But why doesn’t everyone deny the gas and oil companies, you say? Guess what? Some of your neighbors are totally fine leasing for fracking. Welcome to red state America. Some people became overnight millionaires from the industry. And guess what else? You and your neighbors might have signed these leases decades ago, as early as the late 1980s, when no one have ever heard of the term “fracking” with exclusive rights for these companies in perpetuity. Big oil and gas knew what it was doing a long time before the general public did and made sure to lock that in. No one wanted to look a gift horse in the mouth. These companies provide jobs and welfare for workers in areas often left devastated by the loss of manufacturing jobs. Fracking generally has more oversight (hopefully) but regardless there’s not a lot to do about it this late in the game.
So RuPaul is literally one person out a million people that gets money from this. It’s a little disingenuous as a community to suddenly clutch the pearls at this for one person.
jayceecook
Anybody surprised by this (possible) revelation doesn’t know shite about Rupaul. 21st Century Rupaul has always been about one thing, $$$
Aires the Ram
Unless any of us are geologists, or in the oil business ourselves, we really don’t have anything to say. Most of you have only “heard” that “fracking = bad”, with no actual knowledge of the facts. And then there’s the fact that the OPEC countries (who hate us btw), no longer hold us hostage to their prices and threats. There’s a bonus when you put gas in your car at just over $2/per gallon instead of $4 or $5 per gallon. There are numerous advantages to our country being almost energy independent, rather than dependent. So before you go off on RuPaul or anyone else, consider the above mentioned.
Cam
Please stop pushing the phony right wing talking points. The OPEC countries still hold us hostage because guess what. The majority of the oil we produce is exported, so any price shocks still effect us since America imports around 50% of it’s oil. Fracking has been tied to increasing earthquakes, to polluted groundwater, and Republicans have passed a waiver saying that the fracking companies do not have to tell us what it is they are pumping into the ground. If it was safe, why hide it?
So again, take your Koch Sponsored American Enterprise institute false talking points and go back to your troll farm.
ScottOnEarth
Who cares? Leave Ru alone.