RuPaul, of the beloved RuPaul’s Drag Race television show, said in a recent interview that he leases the mineral and water rights of his land in Wyoming to oil companies.
In an interview with NPR’s Terry Gross on her show “Fresh Air” (the irony), Gross asked RuPaul about the 60 acres of land he owns in Wyoming.
“Oh, no, no no. No, no, no. Sixty thousand acres,” RuPaul corrected Gross.
“That’s like a national park!” Gross exclaimed. “What are you doing with them? … Do you have, like, horses, cattle, a farm?”
RuPaul went on to explain that a “modern ranch, 21st-century ranch is really land management”. Land management, at least the way he’s doing it, is to “lease the mineral rights to oil companies and you sell water to oil companies, and then you lease the grazing rights to different ranchers”.
While Gross moved on to ask about what RuPaul’s life on a ranch was like, people on social media pointed out that RuPaul essentially admitted to fracking – a revelation that went widely unnoticed given current circumstances.
CDC: NO LARGE GATHERINGS!!
— Slade (@Slade) March 16, 2020
GOOD PEOPLE: Stay home!
BAD PEOPLE: I'll do what I want!
RUPAUL: I've been fracking!
Rory Solomon, a Twitter user, took things a step further by comparing RuPaul’s property, which he owns with his partner, Georges LeBar, to a map of fracking sites on FracTracker, a nonprofit group that collects data on fracking sites. Solomon found that huge swaths of the land were used for oil and gas wells.
HOLD UP. (Non-COVID content) @RuPaul was just on @NPRFreshAir and shared that he & his partner own 60,000 acres in Wyoming & they "lease mineral rights ... and sell water to oil companies" and Terry Gross did not follow up with one question about the fact that RuPaul is FRACKING pic.twitter.com/KJanHgi0xI
— Rory Solomon (@rorys) March 15, 2020
Environmental news site Earther calculated, using FracTracker, that there are 35 active oil and gas wells on just 10,000 acres of RuPaul’s property.
Fracking is a controversial method of extracting oil and gas trapped in shale and rock formations. The practice is known for damaging surrounding areas where waste from the sites are dumped. Estimates say that fracking releases 5.3bn pounds of methane into the atmosphere, the equivalent of 22 coal-fired power plants.
RuPaul has yet to comment publicly on fans’ concerns that the drag star is fracking. RuPaul’s Drag Race is currently airing its 12th season. One of the guest judges on the show will be Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who coincidentally introduced a bill in the House that bans all fracking by 2025.
