RuPaul Is Ru-Diculously Good at TikTok

“Look, I’m not an economist,” RuPaul intoned in a January 23 TikTok, looking directly at the camera. “But I do know that your best defense against financial ruin is a side ponytail.” The video now has 10 million views and 1.3 million likes, and it has since been used to score a separate Ethel Cain x RuPaul edit that also got over a million views. Distinct from Drag Race, RuPaul Charles has become an extremely popular poster on TikTok, currently sitting at 3 million followers and 49 million likes.

When you look at the basic proposition of TikTok (short videos using pre-existent audio), rather than at its target audience (Gen-Z), it makes sense that RuPaul has taken so strongly to the app. There’s nothing Ru loves more than an old song or an old reference, and TikTok gives him an opportunity to flex his canon. He’s constantly lip-syncing to audios uploaded himself rather than hopping on sounds that are already popular. That’s while wearing an assortment of strange costume pieces seemingly kept on hand. It’s an app that’s so uniquely catered to Ru’s abilities — like lip sync, costuming, and parody — that’s she’s an utter natural. Part of the fun is how candid it seems. The “RuPaul” on Drag Race is fun loving but extremely poised. That’s Mother! On TikTok, she’s letting her wig down. Below, some of RuPaul’s weirdest and best videos.

When she gave financial advice

This is the mother of all Mother’s TikToks, the truly most iconic one. One of things about Ru on the app is that she has the ability to say all of the absurd things she’s saying with an utterly straight face. She’ll have you believing in that side ponytail.

When she said this nonsense

“If you stay spaghetti, you ain’t gotta get spaghetti” is pretty classic Ru, but the deadpanned “Carbs are important, hashtag love it” is what sends this into the stratosphere. The lens-less frames just add to the absurd advice.

When she lip synced to Trina

Trina’s “Ball Wit Me” is not a popular audio on TikTok, which means that RuPaul simply remembered this song existed one day and decided to throw on a white mushroom wig and a neon green faux-fur coat and have some fun with the track. The implied back story is a lot of the fun here, but don’t sleep on the way the wig moves. Every time he moves his head, the wig does something else entirely.

When she bastardized Joan Crawford

Clearly this sound is lodged in his and only his brain from long, long ago. Ru lip-syncs a Joan Crawford line from the 1950 film The Damned Don’t Cry with one blacked-out tooth. The incongruity of the black tooth and the dignified voice of Joan Crawford shows a next-level artistic understanding of the best of TikTok.

When she showed off her costuming skills

“Which one of you bitches is my mother?” Ru lip-syncs from the 1984 miniseries Lace. Few know the power of a piece of fabric thrown over oneself, but RuPaul does. All four of these improvised costumes tell you everything you need to know about the characters Ru has created.

When she promoted her damn self

Even when he’s promoting his book tour, as he currently is, he does it with a more than a touch of absurdism. “It’s 8 p.m. Do you know where your pussy is?” he asked in a recent video. “Well mine’s gonna be in Los Angeles at the Ricardo Montalban Theatre on March 18.” Now that is marketing.

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