How Rihanna's Hair Pro Yusef Mugler Balances Styling and Being a Ballroom Father: Inside His Incredible Career

The veteran hairstylist opens up to PEOPLE about bringing Ballroom to the mainstream with his show 'House on Fire'

When Yusef Mugler met Rihanna he was already a rising star — just not in the hair world.

Mugler had already been working in the Ballroom scene for three years when he launched his creative partnership with Rihanna at Paris Fashion Week in 2008. The competitions, pioneered by Black and Brown LGBTQ+ artists, include multiple categories like vogueing, face and runway. Individuals compete under Houses named for iconic fashion brands and comprised of chosen family.

As Mugler continued working with Rihanna — cementing their innovative hairstyling vision during the star's 2011 "We Found Love" music video — he also rose the ranks in the Iconic House of Miyake-Mugler, ascending to the role of Overall Father of the international house in 2009. His responsibilities as the emotional anchor of the team include much of what a biological father would do: give advice, support and encourage positive relationships between the members of the house.

In June 2024, Mugler brought the world into the professional and personal lives of his chosen family in the reality show House on Fire. The series follows key members of the Iconic House of Miyake-Mugler as they try to maintain their status in the Ballroom scene while having drama play out behind the scenes.

Somehow, Mugler makes it all work, balancing executive producing House on Fire, parenting his Ballroom kids and keeping up his hairstyling career. Here, he tells PEOPLE how he got his start, what he loves about working with Rihanna and why Ballroom is for everyone.

PEOPLE: How did you get your start in Ballroom?

Yusef Mugler: I showed up as a natural-born leader. I grew up in a big family with 24 brothers and sisters. So it was pretty easy to show up and be able to extend myself with all my skills and team building and talent. I was a singer and a performer, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to walk balls; I just wanted to help everybody. That was my thing in the beginning and I just got engulfed in the culture so fast.

PEOPLE: What was it like in your early working days doing Rihanna's hair?

YM: We had mutual friends, and they've always talked me up, and when we finally got in a room together, she was like, 'Oh my God, you're you,' and I was like, 'You're Rihanna!' And I went to Paris with her for fashion week where she needed to make noise and luckily we did. And from there it was a love affair. I was supposed to be there for two days. I stayed for a week and we killed Paris.

It was an instant connection where I had the knowledge because I had worked in Paris and done all of the fashion shows that she was going to, so I had a connection with the designers and what the looks should feel like and things like that. That was very important to her because she wanted to be around people who she could learn from and vice versa. And it just kind of happened naturally and we've been together ever since.

Shortly after that, she was doing her music video for "We Found Love" and she was like, 'Hey, can you do a video with me?' And we went to Belfast, and that was a big job because I had to take her from being this badass short-haired girl to this wild little bit slept-in look. It was an era where we had to go from one extreme all the way to the next.

PEOPLE: How do you create Rihanna's iconic looks?

YM: We have these high-five moments where she's like, 'okay, this one is so much better. Wait, I like this one better.' I think we have those aha moments all the time. Something as simple as shaving the side of her head was like, I can't believe we did that. That changed beauty and that made girls feel more badass, that they can do things like that. We just kind of go with the flow every time we sit down to create.

PEOPLE: What is your funniest memory of working with Rihanna?

YM: I talk a lot about the Brazilian Vogue cover, but I also go back to working on "We Found Love" in Belfast. It was over a week and a half of running around that place, fixing her hair and changing her hair in the middle of a farm. We still laugh at those moments when we just created something so magical with nothing in our hands. I was watching that behind-the-scenes stuff the other day and was like 'holy crap; this is what we were doing 15 years ago now.' That we were doing things impulsively and creating these magical moments was so great.

PEOPLE: What does your day-to-day look like, balancing the demands of the international house and your hairstyling career?

YM: When I turn my phone on, I'm like, 'All right, who's going to hit me first?' And usually it is work, it's my career that always comes first. My family, they're going to be there. So I learned very early on how to juggle and balance the two. When I'm at work, and I'm on set, I may get a kid to call me and be like, 'Hey, I'm over it. I don't like this.' Or, 'Oh, I want to walk this ball, what do you think?'

And I just try to be as available as I can and when I can't, I am very upfront and have no problem with telling them to leave me the hell alone. Saying, 'I'm putting out fashion fires and working on a 10-page fashion story for Vogue. I can't talk right now.' I'm very upfront with that. So you got to set boundaries and then you also got to find time to be available for the family aspect of it. And that could be my chosen family at Mugler to my natural born blood family.

PEOPLE: What does chosen family mean to you?

YM: I think the amount of time I put in, both really feel the same for me. I think building relationships with my chosen family was a natural chemistry kind of situation as opposed to having a blood family: we fight, we love each other and we try to push each other to be the best. The only difference is blood to me. And I think when it comes to being the Overall Father figure, it's a heavy crown to wear. And I've been put in that position, I think, spiritually because it's just who I am. I'm just ordained with this ability to basically have this nurturing part in me. And I think I learned that from my biological family to actually be there and be selfless and having so many brothers and sisters, it was never just about me ever. No matter how hard I tried for it to be, I have to think about the bigger picture always.

I really have to step in and be a parent and really show them that it's more than just showing up and saying, 'Oh, I'm fabulous, and the world needs to see me.' I'm like, 'Hold up, bring it back down. Get to the foundation and then I can send you out to the wolves and you'll be fully equipped to handle anything that comes your way.' So yeah, that is really something that I wanted people to see in House on Fire. It's just not all beauty and fabulosity. No. You have to earn that shit and then you can hit the Ballroom floor and show your colors and be the peacock.

PEOPLE: What was your biggest worry about showcasing your chosen family on House on Fire, and what was the best part?

YM: I think for me the most important part was just protecting my house. There have been so many times when people have approached different houses and me saying, 'Hey, we want to do a documentary about Ballroom.' And I've always asked, 'Who's in charge? Who's controlling? What's the narrative?' I wanted to make sure that it was always authentic and that the stories were being conveyed to the world in the most appropriate way.

Me and my best friend, who's also an executive producer with me, sat down one day and we were just like, 'Hey, if we're going to do this, this is how it has to be done.' And I felt comfortable with being an executive producer. It really gave me the control to be in front of the narrative and make sure that it was going to be authentically Ballroom and authentically house-driven. We want to make sure that it keeps its grit, that it keeps its soul, and it keeps all the foundation and people are fully aware and knowledgeable about where it comes from.

PEOPLE: What's been the best reaction to the series so far?

YM: Every time I wake up, it's like a new joy that I'm finding with this show because, like I said, I was super scared. Every day I am getting more and more messages from people saying, 'Thank you so much. I got the missing piece of the puzzle on what Ballroom is and what chosen family is. I'm seeing it right in front of me.'

To be able to be a part of something that is so trailblazing and being the pioneer of bringing this to someone in the middle of nowhere who never thought that they would have these stories come for them is so amazing. I'm getting so much gratification for just allowing people to see something that they've only heard about or they only just assumed what it is.

PEOPLE: For people who aren't LBGTQ+ or don't live in a big city, how can they relate to Ballroom?

YM: Every time you listen to the radio and hear a Madonna song and you hear a Beyoncé song, you are a part of Ballroom. That is the mothership. I also think that people will see themselves in each character in the show. That is really what's important. It doesn't matter if we're queer, we're straight, anything like that. You honestly forget that you're watching an experience of queer and trans people. It's just a moment, it's a big part of pop culture and it's always been here.

PEOPLE: How did it feel to produce the Ballroom section of Rihanna's Super Bowl Halftime Show?

YM: It was something that I was not expecting. They brought a bunch of little vignette videos to Rihanna and something popped up about Ballroom and she was like, 'I want nothing to do with this. Let me give it to Yusef.' And it was the best experience that I could have ever had, especially it being the Super Bowl, which is the biggest stage in America.

It was so gratifying to be able to bring people from my community and really help authenticate what was going to be seen as Ballroom on such a big stage. It was a beautiful experience and I was able to really go in and pull every single person from Ballroom and give them jobs and show them, 'Hey, we can also take on the Super Bowl stage and take on main stages of the world as well.'

PEOPLE: What went into deciding to showcase Rihanna's natural hair for her 2024 Fenty Hair launch?

YM: Because we've done everything. We've done every single thing. So the next step is just shave your head, just go full commando. And I think we looked at each other and were like, 'wait a minute.' It was one of those moments. She's a mom now. She's just embracing her womanhood in the best way which is something I have no idea about. But when a woman feels that energy, I can just see it and I'm like, 'okay.'

It was nice to see so many women, and celebrity women say, 'Hey, I'm wearing my natural hair' immediately after that, not to take credit. But we also know what a big influence Rihanna has on the world when it comes to fashion and beauty and to see that was amazing. It was time to just let it all out. And because Rihanna shows up and owns it, it makes it a lot easier to tell that to the everyday woman. 'You can do this.'

PEOPLE: How do you describe Ballroom to people who haven't experienced it?

YM: It's a feeling, it's a vibration. It's spiritual for me. And a lot of my friends that have never been to a ball, the minute they walk into that room and feel the music and the energy, the comradery, the competition of it all is so magical and infectious.

I've never had someone that came in and said, 'okay, there's too much. I'm out of here.' For a lot of my kids that are on House on Fire, Ballroom has created this space for them to go and just be free and be whoever they want to be in those moments. And I think it doesn't matter where you are, it should empower you to feel that way.

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