The fifth season of RuPaul's Drag Race began airing on January 27, 2013, with a 90-minute premiere episode. It had the most contestants since the creation of the show with fourteen. As this season's winner, Jinkx Monsoon walked away with the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar" along with a sickening supply of Colorevolution Cosmetics, a one-of-a-kind trip courtesy of AlandChuck.travel, a headlining spot on Logo's Drag Race Tour featuring Absolut Vodka and a cash prize of $100 000. Santino Rice and Michelle Visage were back as judges at the panel. The theme song playing during the runway every episode is "I Bring the Beat", while the song playing during the credits is "The Beginning", both songs are from RuPaul's album Glamazon. This is the first-ever series in the show's history to feature a double elimination between two contestants, Honey Mahogany and Vivienne Pinay. It is also the first series to feature a queen, Coco Montrese, lip-sync for their life four times before being eliminated and the first series where RuPaul allowed fans to vote for a winner. The winner of the fifth season of RuPaul's Drag Race was Jinkx Monsoon, with Alaska and Roxxxy Andrews being the runners-up, and Ivy Winters being crowned season 5's Miss Congeniality.
The overnight ratings for the fifth-season premiere of Rupaul's Drag Race reinforced the show's position as Logo's juggernaut. "Monday night's 9PM season five premiere of RuPaul's Drag Race worked the ratings runway, averaging a.8 rating in the P18-49 demo. This number represents a 33% increase over Logo's previous top-rated season premiere and clocks in as the highest-rated season premiere in Logo history. Additionally, the 90-minute premiere tallied 565,000 total viewers tuning in to meet the new cast of 14 drag queen hopefuls who will fight it out to be crowned "America's Next Drag Superstar". The fifth-season premiere night of RuPaul's Drag Race and companion series RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked delivered over 1.3 million viewers. Furthermore, RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked was the most-watched premiere ever averaging 291,000 total viewers and a.5 rating P18-49. On social media platforms for premiere night, RuPaul's Drag Race and Untucked showed a 136% increase in social activity versus the fourth-season premiere – this includes tweets, Facebook posts and Get Glue check-ins.
Future appearances
, Alyssa Edwards, Coco Montrese, Detox and Roxxxy Andrews competed on the second season of . Coco placed 10th, Alyssa placed 5th, Roxxxy placed 4th and Detox was runner-up with season 7 contestant Katya. Alaska won the competition. Alyssa Edwards and Roxxxy Andrews later returned to star as secret lip sync assassins on fifth season of .
