Before she was Mama Ru or the ineffable, larger-than-life host of RuPaul’s Drag Race, RuPaul was just your average queen milling about New York’s dirty streets. Multimedia artist and documenter of New York’s 80s downtown scene, Nelson Sullivan, often trained his lens on her, trailing her wherever she went. There are countless Ru-centric diary videos on YouTube by Sullivan, but this little-circulated one from 1988 really stands out.

If the only Ru you know is the shellacked blonde who tells queens to “lip sync for your life”, then this Snapchat-style documentary will give you a flavour of RuPaul before Drag Race. Known for her flawless looks, this more (ahem) DIY Ru looks a lot more bargain bin than Fifth Avenue honey. “Even as a kid, I’ve always admired and taken my fashion aesthetic from the world of prostitution,” she told us back in June. “I always loved what prostitutes wear (laughs). In the 80s my look was a combination of street-walker and soul train dancer.”

In the video, Ru gets frank about the reality of working the club circuit and exchanging her body for cash. “I let all these men touch me, just because I wanted the money,” she says. “Ain’t that terrible? What am I gonna do? I’m in show business, you know? I gotta live, right? I had a lot of drinks. I said to myself, ‘What do you want?’ These guys, they look at you, they want to touch you. Charge them for it, damnit! What’s so damn wrong with that?”

Watch below: