RuPaul says Jimmy Fallon's 'Lip Sync Battle' is a 'poor ripoff' of 'Drag Race'
The library is open, darling.
RuPaul, supermodel of the world and host of RuPaul's Drag Race, recently sat down for an expansive interview with Vulture -- where he spoke, among other things, about how Jimmy Fallon's show Lip Sync Battle is a "poor ripoff" of Drag Race.
Fallon's show features celebrities lip syncing to popular songs. Lip syncing is a huge part of drag culture; Drag Race, which has been on the air since 2009, features contestants lip syncing in every episode.
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When asked what he thought about Lip Sync Battle, here's what Ru said.
"Oh, I don't think of it. It's a poor ripoff of our show. Regular, straight pop culture has liberally lifted things from gay culture as long as I can remember. And that's fine, because guess what? We have so much more where that comes from. Take it!"
RuPaul then mentioned his new series, Gay for Play, and "gay shame" in the LBGTQ community. Gay people, he says, will "accept a straight pop star over a gay pop star, or they will accept a straight version of a gay thing, because there's still so much self-loathing."
"This so-called 'Will & Grace acceptance' era is just people f*cking posing. Things haven't changed that much. You see it in politics right now — that's the f*cking truth of people. And you know, people will have you think, 'Oh, we're fashion. We're gay. That's my gay over there!' It's like, no. We're still a very, very, very primitive culture."
Ru also spoke about Drag Race's criminal lack of awards-show love ("I'd rather have an enema than have an Emmy") and why drag culture can never be mainstream.
"It will never be mainstream, because it is completely opposed to fitting in," he said.
Now, sashay away.
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Yohana Desta was the senior film reporter for Mashable. She is a Northern Virginia native and an American University grad. She enjoys carefully curating her Instagram account and can often be found reading books, going to concerts, watching movies and learning way too much about pop culture.
