Bianca Del Rio is tacklin’ the news…
The 45-year-old Cuban and Honduran American drag queen, comedian, actor, and costume designer, whose real name is Roy Haylock, will speak the tea regarding the top headlines for NewsBeat, from Politicon and executive producer Clay Aiken.
Del Rio, the winner of the sixth season of RuPaul’s Drag Race, will appear alongside fellow Drag Race alum.
NewsBeat, which will also feature Lady Bunny, Lyle and Delta Work as correspondents, seeks to provide a serious daily news show for the next generation of viewers. The program will center around hard news headline, political analysis presented by West and Del Rio.
Each episode will highlight two or three top news stories of the day. A guest panel of political pundits will join the anchors via satellite to discuss the biggest stories. Each episode will also feature a pre-taped field package with one of the correspondents interviewing a major newsmaker or politician.
The pilot episode will feature interviews with James Carville, Touré and Scottie Nell-Hughes.
“Staying informed and knowing what’s actually going on in the country and the world is really important, but I, and so many people I know, finally just turned off the news over this past year. So we wanted to find a way to keep people really informed — give them important news and objective information — and still keep it entertaining and engaging,” Aiken said. “We wanted to make the news appointment TV again without needing to sensationalize it or scare or depress folks. NewsBeat is really about facts first, but it is also about making the news interesting again.”