RuPaul's Drag Race and American Idol star Adore Delano comes out as trans: 'It feels so empowering'
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Adore Delano, RuPaul's Drag Race season 6 finalist and former American Idol contestant, came out as trans in an emotional video chronicling her journey.
The 33-year-old recording artist and drag performer shared a tear-filled video on Instagram Wednesday, in which she addressed "a lot of talk about my body and questions about my gender" circulating online.
"I wanted to let everybody know that I am transitioning, and I kept it really of hush-hush the first three months because I wanted to go through the beginning stages of the puberty privately," Adore said in the clip, in which she also spoke about being sober for the last two years. "I've found that it's been very enlightening and has made me probably the happiest I've ever been in my adult life."
She then recounted her journey from "dysphoria to euphoria" and feeling different as a kid after coming out as bisexual at age 12, before coming out as gay, and ultimately coming out to her mother as trans when she was in high school. Adore said that her experience on American Idol season 7 in 2008 prompted her to "suppress everything" she'd learned about her identity as a trans person.
"I threw it away, I burned it," she said. "I reinvented myself into something that was so uncomfortable. It was almost like a sacrifice in order to get what I wanted career-wise. It made sense to me at the time, as a 16-year-old, and then I got on the show, and that carried on in the story on Drag Race."
After being eliminated from Idol, she said, she went back to living life in a "more femme-presenting" way, and fell in love with the transformational power of drag. She went on to finish Drag Race season 6 as runner-up to winner Bianca Del Rio, with whom she has stayed close friends. Adore later competed on RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars 2, but shockingly chose to leave on episode 2.
"I'm living in my world now, and it feels so empowering, and it feels so good," Adore said on Instagram. "It feels so liberating."
Courtesy of Five Senses Reeling Adore Delano
"I'm going to be having surgery in November, so I'm probably going to look a little different," she shared, confirming that she'll take a few months off at the top of 2024 for "some major surgeries" as well.
She finished the video with an empowered proclamation of her pronouns.
"I am transgender," she said. "I'm going by she/her. They still feels a little cute, but she/her just feels yummy on this cupcake."
After finishing her runs on American Idol and Drag Race, Adore blazed a trail in the music industry for drag artists after charting her 2014 album Till Death Do Us Party at No. 59 on the Billboard 200. She's also embarked on several successful tours, and appeared as a contestant on MTV's Ex on the Beach in 2019.
Watch Adore's emotional coming out video above.
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