Ah yes, the humble lip sync battle. Where your sassy drag queens come head to head to show of their skills to perfectly timed ‘Toxic’ by Britney Spears or throwing it down to ‘Bootylicious’ by Destiny’s Child – we all love it. While there are other famous tv shows that also host lip sync battles, nobody does it better than RuPaul’s Drag Race. With so many seasons internationally, our writers give the lowdown on their favourite battles.
Ginger Minj vs Jaidynn Diore Fierce
In a tense moment of season 7, the makeover challenge called for the remaining queens to add an eliminated queen to their drag family. This challenge saw Ginger Minj and Jaidynn Diore Fierce battle it out in the bottom. However, this was a lip-sync like no other, with the queens being physically attached to the other queens they made over.
The Ginger/Sasha Belle and Jaidynn/Tempest DuJour combos battled it out to Tiffany’s ‘I think we’re alone now,’ which is in itself a high-quality joke. The actions on the main stage reflected the comedy set up, with Ginger Minj cutting her very shoddy, breast connection with her sister, while Jaidynn was left attempting to disco dance with a very tall person with their crotch attached to her butt. In some antics that would often look a bit messy, Ginger’s broken costume and wigless head beat Jaidynn’s splash of Sunday Night Fever, ending her few weeks in the bottom and giving more reason for season 7 to get a lot more respect than it usually does.
Emily Dennis
Coco Montrese vs Alyssa Edwards
The epic rivalry between Coco Montrese and Alyssa Edwards came to head in the most epic lip-sync in RuPaul’s Drag Race herstory. In season 5, episode 9 – we see Coco and Alyssa lip-sync to Paula Abdul’s ‘Cold Hearted’. It is full of stunning moments and epic moves as the queens use their feud to light up their performance. Alyssa does a helicopter spilt, is that even legal? And prances around the stage proving just why she is the dancing queen, whilst Coco swirls in her epic yellow outfit which is eye-dropping. But the most epic moment is when Coco points to her mouth whilst lip-syncing to the rapid paced almost rap-like lyrics. They both prove why they are lip-syncing assassins making all our jaws drop to the floor. If there is any lip-sync I would recommend for someone to watch it’s this one! It encapsulates everything there is to drag from drama to extraordinary performances, even after 7 years of the performance being available to watch I am still gagged to this day each time I watch it.
Morgan McMillan
Aja vs Nina Bo-Nina Brown
When people think of ‘best drag race lip syncs’ they sadly don’t always bring up the ICONIC season 9 battle that was Aja vs. Nina Bo-Nina Brown. Although often outshone by the other lip syncs of the season (see rose wig and ‘can I keep it on please?’), I think this lip sync deserves due credit. It has DRAMA, SKILL, and most importantly, is massively entertaining. The girls hit every beat of the song, despite them going about it in wildly different styles: Aja vogues and splits and flips, whereas Nina utilises her huge wig and pads, duck-walking across the floor and giving us FACE. I’ve also got to shout out the other girls going wild in the background: I love a good lip sync where you can tell the live audience (the other queens) are having fun too, as told by Shea’s excited call of ‘Come on ladies let’s go!!’ and Trinity’s exhilarated jumps as the girls hit the same move at the same time. It’s one of those lip syncs that just feels so alive, like the girls are having a great time whilst doing it. Not to mention, the song (‘Finally’ by CeCe Peniston) is an absolute banger.
Alice Fortt
