On January 6, “RuPaul’s Drag Race” Season 15 premieres on MTV with 16 all-new queens, the largest starting cast in the series to date. The contestants will be competing for the show’s biggest purse in herstory as well — a whopping $200,000 grand prize. In a previous announcement we learned that pop megastar Ariana Grande will be returning as a guest judge for the first episode, but now we also know that icon Ts Madison is joining the panel as a new judge throughout the season.
Ts is no stranger to the “Drag Race” panel, where she’ll be sitting alongside host RuPaul Charles, Michelle Visage (who joined in Season 3), and Carson Kressley and Ross Mathews (who both joined in Season 7). Ts first appeared on the reality TV series in Season 13 for the “Bossy Rossy: The RuBoot” and “Snatch Game” episodes — watch a flashback clip below. And she returned in Season 14 for “The Daytona Wind.” Prior to her own stints on the show, Ts was portrayed by Silky Nutmeg Ganache in her challenge win for Season 11’s “Snatch Game.” Following Season 14, Ts hosted the WOWPresents Plus supplemental series “Bring Back My Girls,” which reunited queens from past seasons to discuss what happened during and after their time in the “werk room.”
SEE ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ winners list: Every season, plus ‘All Stars’
News of Ts joining the panel hits just a year after she secured legend status in the LGBTQIA+ community when she became the first Black trans woman to star in and executive produce her own reality TV show, “The Ts Madison Experience,” on We TV. This major milestone is the culmination of the hard work and dedication Ts put into building her career ever since going viral in 2013 with the “New Weave 22 Inches” Vine.
At the time Ts went viral, she was starring in adult films and already running her own production company. The video clip where she appeared nude boosted her profile and she was able to sign a recording contract that led to her first single “Feeling My Fish,” her first album “The New Supreme,” and later collaborations with RuPaul, Ellis Miah and Todrick Hall. Her voice was also sampled on the track “Cozy” by Beyonce for her acclaimed album “Renaissance.”
Even if being referenced by Beyonce is pretty big, Ts was able to make it to the big screen on her own multiple times with performances in the films “Zola” in 2020 and “Bros” in 2022. She will also appear in the upcoming films “The Perfect Find” with Gabrielle Union and a still untitled romance alongside Angelica Ross.
On the television screen, she was in all eight episodes of the ALLBLK original series “Hush” and starred in two web series for World of Wonder, “Wait a Minute” and “Lemme Pick You Up.” And since music, film and TV aren’t enough, Ts also took to the pen in writing and publishing the memoir “Light Through the Shade: An Autobiography of a Queen.” Seriously, is her EGOT ready yet?
In addition to Ts taking her seat on the panel and Ariana on the premiere, the guest judge line-up for Season 15 was recently announced via Twitter. The single-episode stars to critique the queens will be Ali Wong, Amandla Stenberg, Harvey Guillen, Hayley Kiyoko, Janelle Monae, Julia Garner, Maren Morris, Megan Stalter and Orville Peck.
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