The Backstreet Boys star in two Christmas specials this season: their JCP Live Spectacular Holidayswhich can be viewed on demand on JCPenney’s Facebook page, and A very Backstreet vacationcoming to TBEN and Disney+ on December 14 — to coincide with the release of their first Christmas album, A very Backstreet Christmas. But they have another reason to celebrate, thanks to an entirely different TV show: RuPaul’s Secret Celebrity Drag Race. Congratulations are in order for BSB’s very own AJ McLean, who surprisingly won the show as his glamorous alter ego, drag queen Poppy Love.
A kind of drag twist on The masked singer‘s draft, season 2 of Secret Celebrity Drag Race featured famous people like Tatyana Ali, Taylor Dayne, Loretta Devine and cheerfulness‘s Jenna Ushkowitz and Kevin McHale in drag disguise. But the winnah, baby, was “Queen Supreme” McLean. Hardly anyone guessed Poppy Love’s true identity: Fans were shocked by the boy band star’s big Ru calf, and even his own family didn’t know he was participating. But McLean says when he was approached to be on the show, he jumped at the chance — and it turns out the RuPaul/Backstreet connection goes way back, making this a circular moment for the now 44-year-old singer.
“When we first broke through in the United States, RuPaul had his talk show, and he was one of the first people to have us perform on television in the United States,” the group’s Kevin Richardson tells Yahoo Entertainment, as he sits with McLean and bandmates Nick Carter, Howie Dorough and Brian Littrell on the set of the JCP Live Spectacular Holidays. “So we never forgot him for that.”
McLean, now a father of two, is amused that – with everything BSB has going on right now – his daughters are very “excited about the fact that at some point my crown and scepter will be sent to my house, so they want to go with that.” But they don’t realize that the scepter weighs about 10 pounds!” He also chuckles as he remembers how to keep his own Secret Celebrity Drag Race stint really secret from his family.
“What’s funny is my wife and my daughters hate when I shave; they think I look really weird without my beard. And I to do look weird!” he says. So when I was shaving [for Drag Race]they didn’t know what I did – and why me held to shave. And I kept making excuses for Dad’s face to breathe, which needed sun. And then I finally came home from rehearsal one night wearing a pair of six-inch heels, and they were like, ‘Okay, what’s going to happen? On here?’”
“They thought he was working as a stripper,” Richardson jokes.
Since the Drag race franchise usually makes multiple finale endings to avoid leaks and spoilers, McLean didn’t know he had actually won Secret Celebrity Drag Breed until the finale aired. He had predicted that Ali, aka Chakra 7, would win, and was “amazed” when he watched the results with his children while on tour with BSB.
“I’m honored to have won the crown,” says the singer, who won a $100,000 cash prize for his favorite charity, Trans Lifeline, a grassroots nonprofit that provides emotional and financial support to transgender people in crisis. “I am a strong supporter of the LGBTQ+ community – I have been active in that community for over 30 years and I will continue to be strong in that community – and I was honored to be asked to do so. … It was an honor to play in such great company for a great cause, and I would do it again. Poppy Love is here to stay.”
Check out Yahoo Entertainment’s in-depth interview with the Backstreet Boys about their holiday album and two holiday specials, the rumor that John Mellencamp protested about being on the same record label as BSB, and Nick Carter’s sweet memory of Christmas with his late brother, Aaron:
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