Kameron Michaels

Kameron Michaels is the stage name of Dane Young (born July 23, 1986), an American drag performer best known for competing on the tenth season of RuPaul's Drag Race. She identifies as a muscle queen, that is, a drag queen whose aesthetic embraces a built, muscular body. Because of her physique, she is known by the nickname "The Bodybuilder Barbie". In June 2019, New York Magazine named Kameron Michaels one of the top 100 Most Powerful Drag Queens in America. The same month, she released "Freedom", her debut single and music video.

Young was born an only child in Massillon, Ohio, where he lived until he was five years old. He grew up in Columbia, Tennessee, and moved to Nashville at age 21.

Young began performing in drag at age 18, having come into contact with drag queens while working as a go-go dancer at a club. He initially took the drag name Arianna St. Claire. After a few months, he switched to the name Kameron Michaels, as he wanted an androgynous first name paired with a last name used by no other drag queen in Nashville. Before appearing on RuPaul's Drag Race, he worked full time as a hair stylist, doing drag only on weekends.

During that time, Michaels performed regularly at Play Dance Bar in Nashville. She auditioned for the tenth season of Drag Race in an effort to overcome a difficult breakup, and she was selected to participate. She finished the season as a runner-up, together with Eureka O'Hara, behind winner Aquaria. Some media outlets and fellow contestants dubbed Michaels the season's lip sync assassin, as she lip-synced for her life four times in a row without being sent home. She also survived the finale's first Lip Sync for the Crown but lost the second one to Aquaria, bringing her lip sync total to six for the season. Since 2019, she has toured internationally alongside other Drag Race alumni as part of the Werq the World tour.

Michaels draws inspiration for her looks from cinema and video games. She describes her drag style as hyper-feminine.

Music

As part of her season's final challenge, Michaels and the other top four contestants wrote and recorded their own verses for RuPaul's song "American". The song reached number 12 on the Billboard Dance/Electronic Songs chart. Michaels recorded the track "Let It Snow" on Christmas Queens 4, a 2018 compilation album featuring Christmas songs performed by former Drag Race contestants. She then embarked on the Christmas Queens tour of Europe in November and December of that year. In June 2019, she released a single called "Freedom" together with its corresponding music video.

Young is openly gay. He started visiting the gym with a boyfriend who pressured him to stop doing drag. After they broke up, Young continued to focus on building muscle and returned to the drag scene, where his body drew criticism from others in the industry.

Singles