Drag Race Down Under star Gabriella Labucci has sent fans into a frenzy after revealing a surprising production secret: crew members re-enact lip syncs for the cameras to capture judges’ reaction shots, long after the queens have performed.
The season three finalist made the revelation during a recent episode of the Pressed Conference podcast, hosted by Nirupam, Bombae, and Amanda. Speaking candidly, Labucci described the unusual behind-the-scenes moment.
“When we lip sync, we have to go off stage to get de-mic’d,” she explained. “And while we’re getting de-mic’d, the production staff are lip syncing on the stage and the judges’ reactions are being filmed to that.”
The goal? To capture reaction shots from angles that may not be possible during the actual live performance. “So when you see the judges’ reactions, it’s not to what we’re actually performing,” Labucci added.
Co-host Bombae was stunned. “You’re making a fool of us, that’s not true,” they replied. Labucci held her ground: “I’m dead set this happens. Because our stage is so small, you can’t get the same shot of the judges watching us.”
The moment quickly went viral, with the podcast clip racking up more than 2.5 million views in just two days. Several queens — past and present — jumped in to confirm Labucci’s account.
Season three’s Amyl clarified, “It’s half true! They have the cameras rolling during the lip sync, BUT the crew does lipsync while we get de-microphoned.” Season four’s Lucina Innocence added, “The PAs doing it is also a sound/lighting test — they capture the judges’ fake reactions as backups, but they definitely film real ones too.”
Flor (season three) simply wrote, “True.” Drag Race UK vs the World winner Blu Hydrangea confirmed the practice also happens on Drag Race UK.
Interestingly, fans of Sasha Velour were quick to point out that she had previously revealed a similar detail in her book The Big Reveal: An Illustrated Manifesto of Drag, referencing her legendary finale lip sync against Shea Couleé in Drag Race season nine.
“They brought some ‘stand-ins’ onto the stage — two guys in cheap blond wigs, smeared with a bit of lipstick. They started playing Whitney’s ‘So Emotional’ again,” she wrote. “The stand-ins attempted to reenact our lip sync while the cameras captured reaction shots of the audience and of Ru [Paul].”
She added that a producer even prompted the crowd: “Now let’s react to Sasha’s big reveal,” encouraging a more dramatic replay of the moment.
As Sasha put it: “TV is all smoke and mirrors. If I were hosting a show, would I want to film fake reactions to get different camera angles? Absolutely!”
Whether fans are shocked or simply amused, the revelation adds a layer of theatrical irony to one of reality TV’s most celebrated queer franchises — proving once again that behind every death drop and wig reveal, there’s a whole crew working the magic.
