Kameron Michaels
Dane Young, known professionally as Kameron Michaels, is an American drag performer who came to international attention after competing on the tenth season of RuPaul's Drag Race. Originally from Columbia, Tennessee, she began her career in Nashville. Michaels 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". Since the airing of her season, Michaels has been a staple of several domestic and international tours that feature Drag Race contestants, including Werq the World, Christmas Queens, and Drive 'N Drag. She has also appeared on a number of web series produced by World of Wonder. In June 2019, she released "Freedom", her debut single and music video.
Early life
Young was born an only child in Massillon, Ohio, where he lived until he was five years old. He briefly resided in Michigan, after which he moved to Columbia, Tennessee, where he spent the majority of his youth. He realized he was gay in his early teens, and he came out to his mother at age 14. She reacted supportively. During his senior year of high school, at age 18, Young began traveling to Nashville on the weekends, and he took up work as a go-go dancer and cocktail server on the local scene. It was there that he first came into contact with drag queens and subsequently began performing in drag. Because he felt more at home in Nashville's queer community than in the conservative environment of Columbia, he relocated to Nashville when he was 21.Career
Beginnings
Young 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. He took inspiration for his aesthetic from cinema and video games, and he describes his drag style as hyper-feminine. After developing a gym habit in his mid-20s, he became known as a muscle queen due to his built physique. Before appearing on RuPaul's Drag Race, Young worked full time as a hair stylist, doing drag only on weekends. He performed regularly at Play Dance Bar in Nashville.''RuPaul's Drag Race''
Michaels auditioned for the seventh season of RuPaul's Drag Race in 2014, but she did not receive a callback. She then auditioned for the tenth season in an effort to overcome a difficult breakup, and she was selected to participate. The season aired in 2018, and she finished 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; no other contestant has survived more than three lip syncs. She also won the finale's first Lip Sync for the Crown but lost the second one to Aquaria, bringing her lip sync total to six. On the show, she was noted for her introverted tendencies, which set her apart from her competitors.
Music and tours
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. In summer 2018, Michaels participated in the 10s Across the Board Tour, traveling around the U.S. with other queens from season 10. Later that year, she recorded the track "Let It Snow" on Christmas Queens 4, a compilation album featuring Christmas songs sung by former Drag Race contestants. Following the album's release, she embarked on the Christmas Queens tour of Europe in November and December 2018. She then returned to Europe for a solo tour in January 2019. In June of that year, she released a single called "Freedom" and a corresponding music video.Since the second half of 2018, Michaels has traveled around the Americas, Asia, Australia and Europe for several legs of Werq the World, and she appears in a docuseries about that tour. As of mid-2020, Michaels was a staple of RuPaul's Drag Race Live!, a residency show in Las Vegas. She will co-star in , an upcoming miniseries about the live show. In May 2020, Michaels participated in a live-streamed version of Werq the World to raise money for drag entertainers out of work due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In July and August 2020, Michaels is on tour with Drive 'N Drag, a drive-in drag show held outdoors to accommodate social distancing restrictions imposed due to COVID-19.
Personal life
Young is openly gay. He started visiting the gym with a boyfriend who pressured him to stop doing drag. After they broke up, he continued to focus on building muscle and returned to the drag scene, where his body drew criticism from others in the industry. In the months that followed the airing of Drag Race season 10, his workout routine temporarily fell by the wayside as he adjusted to life on tour.Both of Young's arms and hands, as well as his chest and neck, bear tattoos that are visible when he is both in and out of drag. Of these, he said, "I started getting tattooed when I was around 26 or 27. All my tattoos are by the same artist, and they were all done in about a year and a half. favorite movies from my childhood and sentimental things in my life." His left arm contains imagery from Jurassic Park and Aliens, and he has a scarab beetle across his chest.
In July 2020, Young deleted much of the content from his Kameron Michaels profiles on Instagram, Twitter and YouTube, coincidentally on the day that RuPaul did the same; this generated discussion and speculation among Drag Race fans and followers. Young later stated that he had removed the posts during a period of mental distress, which he attributed to prolonged time spent home alone due to the COVID-19 pandemic and to reflection about the ongoing George Floyd protests. He subsequently restored some of the content.
Discography
Singles
| Title | Year | Album | |
| "Freedom" | 2019 | rowspan="1" |