Michelle adopted her surname, Visage, after gaining the nickname ' cara' ('face' in Portuguese) from the people she spent time with in the New York ball scene. However, because people pronounced it incorrectly she decided to change it to ' visage' ('face' in French - a language she studied during middle and high school), a name she has stuck with. Visage also met her future friend and co-star RuPaul for the first time in the late 1980s, when she attended club nights and parties hosted by Susanne Bartsch.
