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RuPaul Covers "Paper" Magazine's First Digital Pride Issue

"It's not going to be easy and there will be blood."

RuPaul, who first appeared on the cover of Paper in 1993, is now serving face on the magazine's very first digital cover.

Shot by Mathu Andersen, RuPaul's summer cover kicks off a series of online-only covers, features, and galleries "celebrating and supporting the diversity, beauty, resiliency, and humor of the LGBTQ community" through July, according to a release.

In the accompanying interview, RuPaul discusses how winning an Emmy last year for hosting RuPaul's Drag Race doesn't signify that drag has gone mainstream.

"Drag is still not mainstream and it will never be," he says. "Drag is the antithesis of the matrix and the matrix is a consumer-oriented program. For a consumer storyline to work, you have to have people choose an identity and stick to it so that the matrix can market things to you."

Tommaso Boddi/WireImage

LOS ANGELES, CA - SEPTEMBER 11: RuPaul poses in the press room at the 2016 Creative Arts Emmy Awards held at Microsoft Theater on September 11, 2016 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Tommaso Boddi/WireImage)

Ru points to how people once believed Will & Grace would suddenly make society more progressive and accepting. "But no, think again," he says. "Drag is a performance and that performance is still a threat to the ego because the ego is all about established identity. I think we are headed somewhere interesting. But let me tell you something. It's not going to be easy and there will be blood."

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