Judges:
RuPaul, Michelle Visage, Santino Rice

Contestants:
Alaska, Alyssa Edwards, Coco Montrese, Detox, Honey Mahogany, Ivy Winters, Jade Jolie, Jinkx Monsoon, Lineysha Sparx, Monica Beverly Hillz, Penny Tration, Roxxxy Andrews, Serena ChaCha, Vivienne Pinay

Guest judges/special guests:
Latrice Royale, Sharon Needles, Willam Belli, Camille Grammer, Mike Ruiz, Kristen Johnston, Juliette Lewis, Coco Austin, Paulina Porizkova, Chaz Bono, Travis Wall, Julie Brown, Downtown Julie Brown, La Toya Jackson, Anita Pointer, Ruth Pointer, Leslie Jordan, Jeffrey Moran, Nadya Ginsburg, Deven Green, Bruce Vilanch, Aubrey O’Day, Joan Van Ark, Jamie-Lunn Sigler, Maria Conchita Alonso, Wilmer Valderrama, Clinton Kelly, George Kotsiopoulos, Marg Helgenberger, Bob Mackie, Gloria Allred, Candis Cayne, Paula Abdul, Tamar Braxton, The Lady Bunny

Running time:
43-64 minutes per episode

Number of episodes:
14

Fourteen more drag queens compete in a variety of challenges to become RuPaul’s next drag superstar and bring home a massive prize pool including $100,000.

Season five of RuPaul’s Drag Race is, as can be expected, filled with fun challenges, beautiful drag queens, and so much shade.

The fifth season is also, at this stage, one of the most tumultuous seasons in terms of casting, which was quite distracting from the art itself. There has always been conflict and likely always will be when you put strong personalities in competition with each other. However, this season cast two former friends and now enemies together. I know … Manufactured drama on reality television — who would have guessed?! But in this particular case the drama between our two queens was distracting and quickly became tiresome.

One of my favourite things about RuPaul’s Drag Race, aside from the gorgeous costumes, fierce make up and wicked one-liners, is the appearances from special guests including past contestants. This season has plenty of both and definitely makes it worthwhile to ensure you watch the seasons in order.

I highly recommend RuPaul’s Drag Race for anyone who loves competition shows based around art, fashion and performance. The cast in season five is incredibly polarising, but that only makes the viewer invest themselves further in the outcome.

The post Bruce Vilanch To Guest On Rupaul’s Drag Race In Season 5 first appeared on We Got Bruce!.

It started out as a quiet coffee bar and 25 years later has developed a reputation that led MTV to call it the “gayest bar on the planet.”

That is The Abbey, which celebrated its 25th anniversary last night with a crowd of hundreds of people and dozens of celebrities such as Michael Sam, Ross Mathews (“Hollywood Today Live”), Candis Cayne (“I Am Cait”) and Heather McDonald (“Chelsea Lately”). And then, of course, there was Bruce Vilanch, Gilles Marini (“Teen Wolf”), Jai Rodriguez (“Queer Eye”) and Noah Galvin (“The Real O’Neals”).

The Abbey Food and Bar, its formal name, has evolved quite a bit since David Cooley, a native of Solon, Ohio, opened a coffee shop on Robertson Boulevard in 1991. That was before the era of Starbucks, when people wondered how anyone could make money selling coffee. Cooley did. The Abbey was an alternative to the bar scene in WeHo’s Boystown and attracted people in recovery attending AA meetings down the street.

In three years, Cooley moved across the street and transformed The Abbey into a bar. As it is today, The Abbey then was an open space – open doors, open windows, a patio and a fountain — a striking contrast to the typical dark and secretive gay bar.

One measure of its popularity is the fact that at one point it was the single largest purchaser of vodka in the world, and helped popularize the flavored martini trend. It was a hangout for Elizabeth Taylor, whose last public appearance was at The Abbey with her dog Daisy. It has evolved in other ways, with a larger heterosexual clientele, something Cooley has welcomed in this era when gay people have gained more and more acceptance. Soon it will even have its own reality TV show.

The Abbey grew physically, taking over a second building, with a patio in the middle, totaling 14,000 square feet. It now has more than 200 employees. Recently Cooley acquired Here Lounge on the Abbey’s north side. It is going to be integrated into The Abbey as the Chapel.

For last night’s celebration The Abbey was decked out in elaborate white from wall-to-wall, and had a full ensemble orchestra playing throughout the private event. Midway through the evening, Cooley, was presented with a Key to the City by Mayor Lauren Meister.

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• Bruce Vilanch Live At Olympus Theater in Highland Park, MI, May 29th

The post Bruce Vilanch Takes in The 25th Anniversary Of The Abbey first appeared on We Got Bruce!.

If you love something, set it free, and if it returns, it was meant to be.

Or have the execs at HBO cancel it, and if it returns, it was meant to be watched. Lisa Kudrow‘s meta-comedy The Comeback, which was axed nine years ago, is going to be back on the air and is just as funny as ever.

Last night, Hollywood’s El Capitan Theater unfurled the red carpet in celebration of Kudrow’s reprisal of her role as the awkward, repressed, self-deluded Valerie Cherish. The artist formerly known as Phoebe Buffay was joined at the gala screening of the new season’s first two episodes by the show’s co-creator Michael Patrick King, as well as a cavalcade of returning co-stars including Laura Silverman, Lance Barber and Damian Young. The cast was bolstered by a roster of the town’s top power gays, including Andrew Rannells, Jane Lynch, Sara Gilbert, Dan Bucatinsky and queen of queer comedy Bruce Vilanch.

“I hope Mickey the makeup guy is in it,” said Vilanch, chatting about the new season before the screening. “I missed the end of the season, so I hope he didn’t die.”

Fans of Mickey, Valerie’s personal makeup artist/sassy gay sidekick, portrayed by Robert Michael Morris, can breathe a sigh of relief. The character survived his melanoma scare from the end of the previous season. And thank god, because Mickey is this series’ version of The Simpsons’ Ralph Wiggum. Every line out of his mouth is comic gold.

For those who were too cheap to spring for premium cable nearly a decade ago, here’s the CliffsNotes version of The Comeback. The mockumentary-style series is like one of those Russian nesting dolls. A reality TV show chronicles faded television star Valerie Cherish as she shoots a cheesy sitcom called Room and Bored in a desperate attempt at recapturing the spotlight. Its a show about a show about a show.

The new season is even more meta. Picking up nine years after the cancellation of the short-lived sitcom, Cherish’s career is flailing. Among her many missteps is self-sabotaging her chance at being one of Bravo’s Housewives of Beverly Hills several years prior, shown via pseudo-raw footage in a hilarious scene with Frontiers friend Lisa Vanderpump. Valerie discovers that Paulie G, the drug addict douchebag who wrote Room and Bored, has created a new show called Seeing Red, a derogatory dramedy (“its like a comedy without the laughs”) about his experience working with Cherish. When Val storms into a casting session to confront him, she ends up reading for—and accepting—the lead role, thus playing her own insulting caricature. For those at home keeping score, the series is now a show about a show capturing a show that’s rehashing what happened behind the scenes of a show that was framed by a reality TV show. Despite the thickly layered premise, the execution is clean and laugh-filled.

After the screening, the audience moseyed over to The Roosevelt for the after-party. Waitresses in red-headed Valerie Cherish wigs doled out wine and mini ahi steaks to HBO’s extended family. But the most popular gay lunch table was Bruce Villanch‘s. As the adage goes, if you have nothing nice to say, go sit next to Bruce. In between the sass and the snark, the conversation touched upon the topic of Frontiers’ upcoming “L.A.’s Most Eligible Bachelors” issue.

“I’m one of you,” quipped Vilanch to the magazine’s collective readers. “I’m not young, I’m not nubile, but I’m a bachelor.”

Robert Michael Morris had a more specific notion of his perfect man. “Someone who cooks and cleans and never criticizes and thinks I’m the best thing since sliced bread,” he said.

Girls heartthrob Andrew Rannells happily played along, although he doesn’t currently qualify as a bachelor. “I have a boyfriend, so I already have the ideal mate,” the angel-faced actor beamed.

Well, Andrew, if you love him, let him go. If he returns to you, it was meant to be. If he doesn’t, the rest of us boys potentially have a shot at you once again.

The post Bruce Vilanch Attends Premiere Of ‘The Comeback’ first appeared on We Got Bruce!.