Since 1955, Guinness World Records has named the best and brightest in categories both broad and obscure, from “Tallest Living Woman” to “Fastest time to make a pasta necklace.” Plus, who could miss those big multi-colored coffee table books released every year? As a child, my own relationship to the Guinness World Records books was that each year they were filled with the coolest, most interesting facts to know about the world, from the widest to the smallest, the oldest to the youngest, and everything in between. So this year, as American drag artists set records both new and old, it’s exciting to see a topic I’ve spent a great deal of my own life researching to be a part of the Guinness World Records in an even larger way.
Guinness World Records is no stranger to drag, and its categories go back at least two decades. In fact, it’s had many explicitly queer categories over the last few years, including “Largest LGBTQ March” (2019) and “First lesbian character in a multiplayer FPS,” (2016) among others. Queer participants have also won titles, like “Highest annual earnings for a television stylist,” (the cast of the original Queer Eye, 2004) and “Most steals in a WNBA Finals game,” (Breanna Stewart, 2024).
Incidentally, Guinness World Records was inspired to add more drag categories by the massive interest in RuPaul’s Drag Race. “Given the runaway popularity of the format, we felt that our audience would be intrigued to learn more about the history and the wider drag community, both on screen and off screen,” a spokesperson for Guinness World Records told Autostraddle. “As a result, we’re now delighted to have significantly increased the scope and variety of our drag-focused record categories, all of which can be discovered on the GWR website.”
Previous drag categories include “Youngest Drag Race Winner” (Krystal Versace on RuPaul’s Drag Race UK in 2021), “Longest line of dancing drag artists” (144 people, also in the UK, 2012), and “Most People Attending a Drag Brunch” (412 people in New York City, 2023). The new and updated records this year were assembled with the help of drag historian Joe E. Jeffreys.
In an interview with Autostraddle, Jeffreys shared his belief that in a country where drag is facing regular backlash, cementing artists’ stature in the Guinness World Records makes drag’s past and present accessible not just physically but culturally. Once the information is there, he says, it can create opportunities for connection and even new events that challenge existing records!
Let’s congratulate the newest drag Guinness World Record title holders representing the USA.
Oldest Drag Queen: Rose Levine
Rose Levine has been performing consistently in drag since she first took to the stage on Fire Island in 1955. Beloved by Broadway legends like Ethel Merman and Jerry Herman, Rose became known on Fire Island for her cabaret performances of jazz standards. Indeed, as the story goes, Ethel Merman spotted Levine at a party in the 1970s and stated, “That’s Rose, she does me.”
Rose also has a long history of activism that runs from the Invasion of the Pines through the AIDS crisis to today. She turned 92 in 2025, which makes her the oldest still-performing drag queen in the world.
Oldest Drag King: El Daña
El Daña attends the “King of Drag” S1 Premiere. (Photo by Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Revry)
El Daña began his drag career in central California in 1965 at a gay bar in Fresno where he performed “La Bamba” by Ritchie Valens. Not long after, El Daña also became known for his renditions of Frank Sinatra, Julio Iglesias, and Tom Jones hits. It was his Jones impersonation in particular that drew the most attention — even from drag legend Charles Pierce, who is said to have told El Daña, “No one can do Tom Jones like you,” according to Drag King History.
El Daña became the world’s oldest still-performing drag king when, at the age of 80 in 2025, he performed onstage in Clovis, California.
Most Emmy Awards Won by a Drag Performer: RuPaul
Rupaul performs during the Gay Rights March April 25, 1993 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Porter Gifford/Liaison)
To any RuPaul’s Drag Race fan over the last 16 years, it will come as no surprise that the show’s namesake and host is currently the most Emmy-winning drag artist of all time. As of 2025, RuPaul has won 14 Emmys. Eight of these awards are for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Competition Program for RuPaul’s Drag Race; five are for Outstanding Reality Competition Program for RuPaul’s Drag Race, where he serves as Executive Producer; and one is for Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program for RuPaul’s Drag Race: Untucked! where he is also Executive Producer.
Highest-Grossing Drag-Themed Movie: Mrs. Doubtfire
Featuring the inimitable Robin Williams in the title role, Mrs. Doubtfire was an instant classic when it was released in 1993. Its successes have only continued over the last 30+ years: as of March 2025, it has grossed $441,286,003, making it the most successful drag-themed film of all time.
One of my personal favorite scenes stars actor, playwright and drag legend Harvey Fierstein in a montage where he and Williams arrive at Mrs. Doubtfire’s final “look.” Fierstein was cast in the role after Williams saw him stage a failed “lesbian fashion show” for a benefit Lily Tomlin held in the early ‘90s.
It turns out the First Female Impersonation Actor on Screen, another Guinness World Record Title created this year, was also American: in 1901, vaudeville actor Gilbert Sarony played his famed “Old Maid” characters in two shorts directed by none other than Thomas Edison, The Old Maid Having Her Picture Taken and The Old Maid in the Horsecar. Sarony’s Guinness World Record Title counterpart, the First Male Impersonation Actress on Film, was French legendary actress Sarah Bernhardt, as Hamlet in 1900.
Highest Grossing Drag-Themed Movie Franchise: Madea Cinematic Universe
Comprised of 13 movies, the films in Tyler Perry’s Madea franchise released in theatres have made Perry himself more than a $291M profit since the first film was released in 2005 (two were released on Netflix). Madea is “strong, witty, loving…just like my mother used to be before she died,” Perry once said. “She would beat the hell out of you but make sure the ambulance got there in time to make sure they could set your arm back.” Madea initially appeared in a play Perry had written called I Can Do Bad All By Myself, first staged in Chicago in 1999. It later became a film of the same name in 2009, starring Taraji P. Henson. The Madea character, inspired by Perry’s mother and grandmother and their senses of humor, wasn’t initially a role meant for Perry in the play — the actress meant for her didn’t show up and Perry had to get into drag.
Needless to say, it worked out.
Longest-Running Drag Queen Competition: Miss Fire Island Pageant
The Miss Fire Island Pageant began in Fire Island’s Cherry Grove in 1966. It will turn 59 this year, making it the world’s longest-running drag queen competition. In the Digital Transgender Archive, you can see what drag looked like at the pageant in 1969, (note that the way drag and gender were discussed at the time were quite different, so proceed accordingly — some of the language and images are fetishizing; “transvestite” and “drag” are used interchangeably; performers are often referred to universally as “he”). The prize at the time was $300, and it’s since gone up to $5000. This year’s event, held on August 30, featured the legendary New York drag queen Ariel Sinclair and Drag Race runner-up Sapphira Cristál as hosts.
Longest-Running Drag King Competition: The San Francisco Drag King Contest
With its 29th edition in August 2025, The San Francisco Drag King Contest became the world’s longest-running drag king competition. The event was originally created by lauded drag king Fudgie Frottage in 1994 with the hopes of advocating for drag kings in a world that had become increasingly focused on drag queens. Since it began, several iconic drag artists have crossed its stage, whether as MCs (Elvis Herselvis, Sister Roma, Fudgie himself), judges (Mo B. Dick, Wang Newton), or contestants (Papi Churro, King Lotus Boy). At the event, hopefuls are judged on their “talent, creativity, studliness, sex appeal, originality, humor, make-up/facial hair, and fashion,” Drag King History shares. It’s become an essential event not just furthering the art of drag kinging in San Francisco, but ensuring future generations of drag kings in the area.
Longest-running drag-themed restaurant franchise: Hamburger Mary’s
Hamburger Mary’s on Church Street in downtown Orlando, Florida. (Orlando Sentinel file/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
When a Hamburger Mary’s opened in my hometown of Fort Lauderdale, my family and I sped over immediately. I was still underage then, so seeing drag in a place I was actually allowed to was a magnificent thrill. Though Fort Lauderdale’s iterations have since closed, there remain eight more across the country. In fact, Mary’s is now the world’s longest-running drag-themed restaurant franchise and will celebrate its 53rd anniversary this coming December. The first Mary’s (since closed) opened in San Francisco in 1972, and “came out of a pot-filled session involving the hippies and gay men that started the restaurant,” according to SFGate. “A fellow called Trixie (real name Jerry Jones)…wanted to open an eatery that offered up sass and style with a burger and fries.”
In the future when there are even more categories — maybe even “longest drag performance by a single artist” or “longest running drag musical on Broadway” — it’s possible, as Joe E. Jeffreys says, that a culture can continue to develop around trying to beat those records and thereby perpetuate drag’s reach. What would it have looked like to see categories for drag when we were growing up? A generation of people won’t have to wonder.
