


By contrast, Drag Race reached about 700,000. Last week, the show hit around 7.6 million viewers. According to, ABC’s American Idol revival attracted 10.3 million viewers, nearly on par with its final season on Fox (9.3 million viewers). Season five would remain the show’s highest rated. Last year, RPDR moved from the niche network Logo to VH1, which has given the show much broader visibility.ĭuring its fifth season, Fox’s American Idol roared along as television’s most-watched show, with an average of 31.7 million viewers, The New York Times reported in 2006.
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The show has beamed drag and LGBTQ culture into the homes of Middle America, building on the success of the VH1 series The RuPaul Show, which started in 1996 and broke open a once-underground genre. In 2009, RuPaul Andre Charles launched the show RuPaul’s Drag Race, in which drag queens from all over the United States compete in a Project Runway-meets-America’s Next Top Model-type showdown. But drag is going mainstream, and Vox’s success is the latest evidence. Until recently, fans have had to venture to gay bars such as the Heat to watch a drag queen perform. Vox emerged from a scene that has pulsed with energy – with drag performers eager to snatch a title at Talent Night at the old Paper Moon in the 1980s, the Haus of Andrews Pageant and today’s Drag Me to Fame competition hosted by Rey Lopez, who routinely brings touring drag stars to town. Yet her run on Idol, which ended with Vox in the top 10, has made her the highest-profile product of a San Antonio drag tradition that goes back decades. They said she lacked polish, that she had an awkward stage presence. In October 2017 at the San Antonio tryouts for the current season of American Idol, Sanders auditioned for the 13th time.įew would have predicted the success of Ada Vox, who’s had her share of critics in San Antonio. Two years later, Sanders had developed the drag persona Ada Vox, and competed in the Drag Me to Fame competition as well as late-night karaoke competitions at Mama Margie's. But he would introduce live singing to the art form. Performing at San Antonio Pride in 2013, following his brief turn on Idol, Sanders saw drag queens in their element for the first time, and he decided to join them. But the performer didn’t survive the notoriously grueling rounds of Hollywood Week, and was sent home early.
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The singer made it on the show after wowing then-celebrity judges Nicki Minaj, Keith Urban, Mariah Carey and Randy Jackson with “I’d Rather Go Blind” by Etta James. His reason for dropping out: getting on American Idol the first time, in season 12 – as Adam Sanders, not yet Ada Vox. Sanders graduated from South San High School and attended UTSA briefly as a music-performance major – he played the clarinet – before leaving school. His connection to music, however, intensified when his mother sang to him in the hospital when Sanders was recovering from the removal of a cyst that had developed on his brain stem when he was eight years old. Vox, the first drag queen in the show’s 16-year history, exposed millions of uninitiated Americans to the art of drag.īut fans of San Antonio’s drag scene knew Vox from way back – or thought they did.īorn Adam Sanders in San Antonio in 1993, he grew up singing.

On the night she was eliminated, April 29, Vox sang The Lion King’s “The Circle of Life,” donning another decadent ensemble – gold chains that matched her hair, which flowed like Mufasa’s mane. “And each time you come, you take us to another level, and I am going to be right here to make sure I see you reach the top. “I can’t even tell you how proud I am of you,” judge Lionel Richie said to her that week. She then decimated her audience with “The Show Must Go On” by the iconic gay-fronted rock group Queen. One evening, she strolled out in a shimmering, raven-like ensemble of black feathers, silver fringe and rhinestones – fit for the likes of Diana Ross. Vox’s numbers and costume choices became more refined as the competition progressed. “You’ve heard the expression ‘wig snatched’?” she asked as Vox flipped her enormous ponytail to one side. Vox followed up with her interpretation of Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good,” which brought judge Katy Perry to her knees. Vox grabbed our attention early on with an incandescent rendition of Radiohead’s “Creep,” and she didn’t let go. Courtesy of Disney/ABC Press To most American Idol viewers, the singing drag queen Ada Vox came out of nowhere to turn in one stunning prime-time performance after another.
