RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Bob the Drag Queen only lip-synced once on season eight of the show – but it turns out she was ready to do so every single week.
Every winner’s journey on RuPaul’s Drag Race is different, but one thing is for sure; they probably didn’t land in the bottom two of each week a whole lot during their path to the crown.
Some, like Bianca Del Rio, Sasha Colby and Nymphia Wind skip out on the whole ‘lip-sync for your life’ thing altogether, never taking to the stage to send one of their competitors home. Some, like Symone, end up dicing with death twice (in fact, the season 13 winner was the first to do so on the flagship franchise).
But most winners have a single lip-sync to their name, and they’re usually iconic. Take, for example, Raja’s soft porn performance with Carmen Carrera on season three, Yvie Oddly‘s legendary “Sorry Not Sorry” performance against Brooke Lynn Hytes on season 11 and Bob the Drag Queen thoroughly wiping the floor with Derrick Barry on season eight in 2016.
And though she only lip-synced once after the season’s ‘Book Ball’, Bob has revealed that every week, she concocted a gagworthy plan during Untucked to help win over the judges if she landed in the bottom.
Discussing Lydia B. Kollins’ scissor-centric fumble from season 17 on podcast Sibling Rivalry with bestie and fellow Drag Race winner Monét X Change, Bob said, “Girl, you should have cut it [backstage] or something.”
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Monét chimed in, “But it’s your first season, Bob, you play by the rules.”
To which Bob joked, “No I did not!” before explaining exactly what she meant by that.
“Every single [lip-syc], except the one I was actually in the bottom in, every single lip-sync, I went and prepared a gag. When I had the paint drip on my head, when we had the neon [runway], I had all this acrylic paint in my titties.
“I was gonna pull it out, and like pour it all over my head, in my mouth, spit it out, I had a gag for every [lip-sync]. If I had to lip-sync, I was ready to do so!”
Sasha Velour would be proud.
Bob has also recently eaten up (ish) a season of The Traitors, and she’s a novelist too, baby.
RuPaul’s Drag Race season 17 continues on MTV on Fridays in the US and WOW Presents Plus internationally.