(From L-R) Anne Hathaway, Scarlett Johansson and Cynthia Erivo. (Getty)
For season 13 of RuPaul’s Drag Race, making history is commonplace.
From featuring the series’ first trans masculine contestant to it being filmed completely under coronavirus restrictions – now it’s a constellation of stars set to make appearances that will be yet another addition to the franchise’s history books.
Anne Hathaway, Scarlett Johansson, Cynthia Erivo, Nicole Byer and more are all billed to appear on the show, according to Deadline, with some even joining Mama Ru behind the judging panel.
Hathaway and Johansson will be part of an interactive video masterclass, the outlet reported, but that’s not all: Cynthia Erivo, Nicole Byer, Loni Love, Ts Madison, and Jamal Sims will all also appear as guest judges.
The celebrities will be part of the panel alongside series mainstays Visage, Carson Kressley and Ross Matthews.
Rupaul’s Drag Race season 13 is set to be a dizzyingly star-studded affair
Both Madison and Sims are Drag Race veterans, with Madison competing on RuPaul’s Secret Celebrity Drag Race in 2019 and Sims serving both as a guest judge before and as a long-time creative collaborator.
Former Miss Congeniality winners Nina West, Valentina and Heidi N Closet will also swing by the werk room for appearances.
The announcement comes ahead of the show’s British premiere, as streaming giant Netflix confirmed only this week that the show will drop Saturday (2 January).
The new Drag Race will begin with a franchise first – with the 13 new queens lip-syncing two-by-two before they’ve so much as unpacked their cases.
A preview of the first episode, released on YouTube, teased the first two queens going head-to-head to the gay national anthem, Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe”.
The new season also marks the first time an out trans man has competed for the crown.
In an apparent nod to this new era of inclusivity, RuPaul has tweaked her “Gentlemen, start your engines, and may the best woman win” catchphrase.
Now, RuPaul tells the queens: “Racers, start your engines, and may the best drag queen win!”