Drag and the Olympic Games

The closing ceremony of the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney included dozens of drag performers to commemorate The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert as part of a tribute to the cinema of Australia.

Leading up to the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, Nicky Doll and two other drag queens participated in the torch relay, and Nymphia Wind performed at the Cultural Olympiad.

[6][7] The opening ceremony's styling and costumes director was French television presenter Daphné Bürki, who is also a judge on Drag Race France.

[9] The queens were joined by other models and performers, including disc jockey Barbara Butch, who wore a silver headdress resembling a halo.

[10] The performers were "dressed as Greek gods in Louis Vuitton costumes to celebrate the history of French art and fashion", according to Christian Holub of Entertainment Weekly.

[31] One of the participants in the scene, Barbara Butch, filed a legal complaint after what she described as "an extremely violent campaign of cyber-harassment and defamation" directed toward her after the ceremony.

The main challenge of "The Draglympics" (2019), the sixth episode of the eleventh season of RuPaul's Drag Race, was inspired by the games.

[45] English diver Tom Daley was a guest judge on an episode of the second series of RuPaul's Drag Race: UK vs. the World (2024).

For the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, French drag queen Nicky Doll (pictured in 2022) carried the Olympic torch during the relay and appeared in the opening ceremony .
Some critics of the scene with drag queens drew comparisons to Leonardo da Vinci 's The Last Supper , which depicts the Last Supper of Jesus with the Twelve Apostles .