Top 10 Wildest RuPaul’s Drag Race Challenges

With RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 6 right around the corner, fans are excited for another dose of the reality competition show. Over 13 seasons, 5 All-Stars seasons, and half-a-dozen international versions, queens from across the world have competed in fierce challenges, in the hopes of winning the Drag Race crown.

In order to test the queens on their charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent, there have been hundreds of different challenges on the show. Some are fan favorites, like snatch game, while others are a snooze, e.g. the terrible acting challenges. Every so often, the producers let their imaginations run wild, and some of their wildest ideas actually end up on the screen.

10 The Underwater Photoshoot

Drag Race always likes to start a season off with a splash, and this time it was literal. The season 5 premiere kicked off with one of the most infamous mini-challenges in Drag Race history: the underwater photo shoot.

The queens had to jump, fully clothed, into a giant tank of water and take model caliber photographs. The results were hilarious: Jade Jolie looked like a chipmunk; Serena Cha Cha exposed her whole “seafood platter”, and Alaska almost drowned in her own wig. Water may be a drag queen’s worst nightmare, but this was a fan-favorite challenge.

9 The Ultimate Cheer Battle Extravaganza

This Cheer Battle Extravaganza might as well have been a Cheer Battle Execution considering how many queens ended up with injuries. The premise for this Season 9 challenge was that the queens were split into two cheerleading groups, and had to perform RuPaul-themed cheers and come up with cheer choreography.

This challenge was doomed from the moment it started. Cheer is a highly physical sport, and a lot of the choreography was quite demanding, and at the end of the day, this was a group of drag queens, with hugely differing fitness abilities and almost all with no cheer experience. It’s no surprise that three queens ended up with injuries: Cynthia Lee Fontaine injured her ankle and Charlie Hides cracked her rib. Meanwhile, by the time episode 5 came around, Eureka was on crutches, and she was shockingly removed from the competition due to a knee injury. This challenge might have been a little too wild.

8 Queens Behaving Badly

All-Stars 1 is notorious for its random challenge choices, and this might be the most chaotic of the lot. Throughout the season the queens had been competing in pairs, so in this challenge, one queen stayed in the studio with RuPaul, while the other was on Hollywood Boulevard. In full drag, in the middle of the day.

Essentially it was something straight out of a prank show. The queen in the studio instructed their partner to complete as many tasks as they could in 10 minutes with the help of passers-by. Some of the tasks included: squirting whipped cream down a stranger’s pants; drinking water out of a stranger’s hands; and being walked with a lead like a dog. This challenge really showed the budget for the season.

7 Hamburger Mary’s

The final All-Stars 1 challenge was focused on the reality of being a drag queen. Sadly it was also focused on saving as much money as possible. Most queens across the world make money from hosting nights at a bar, so for this challenge, the queens were asked to do exactly that at Hamburger Mary’s.

To kick it off, the queens were driven across LA by out-of-drag alumni of the show, Ongina, and Delta Work. No reason is given for this, but it’s extremely stressful as they are running wildly late. After an awkward group interview, the queens arrived at Hamburger Mary’s where they had to perform a comedy sketch to the bar. Admittedly, Juju and Raven are hilarious, but the sight of Ru, Michelle, and Santino sat in a run-of-the-mill LA bar is hard to compute. To top it off the queens had to sell and take a bite of the eponymous hamburger on stage.

6 The Rocky Mountain Photoshoot

In an effort to raise the stakes for the show’s first Canadian season, producers put a northern spin on the classic photo shoot challenge. Previously queens have taken photos underwater, jumped off ledges, and bounced on trampolines; but for Canada’s Drag Race the contestants had to climb a mountain.

Alas, it wasn’t a real mountain, but it was still a fairly high and dangerous platform. Things only got crazier when the judges turned on a massive fan and fake snow was hurtled into the queen’s faces. Eyelashes were tugged, hats went flying and Ilona Verley’s thankfully fake septum ring was ripped out of her nose. Most iconic of all was Jimbo’s shoot, where she just screamed in terror at the nightmarish fan.

5 WTF! – Wrestling’s Trashiest Fighters

Drag is not a contact sport. Except for season 4’s wrestling challenge, in which the queens were literally told to battle each other to the ground. The queens were split up into teams and told to create a wrestling storyline and choreography to be performed in front of a studio audience.

What resulted was wild, messy, and probably a health and safety nightmare. Every group was set up with two queens as the good girls, and two as the villains. Dressed in horrendous black and green spandex, Latrice Royale and Kenya Michaels stole the show as the “Bitter Bettys”. Kenya jumped and squawked like a ravenous animal while Latrice kicked and slapped the competition; before finally Latrice picked Kenya up and threw her at poor Lashawn Beyond. Miraculously no one was injured, but it’s unlikely we’ll see a WTF! sequel in the near future.

4 Chicken Or What

This season 2 mini-challenge is utterly ridiculous and has absolutely nothing to do with drag. The queens were lined up at a table, blindfolded, and had to work out if what they were eating was chicken or “what?” The first two queens to get three points would win.

It was something straight out of Survivor, as the queens ate a variety of dishes including frog legs, and bull testicles. After three rounds there was a tie, so to decide the winner three queens had to eat a platter of chicken, rabbit, alligator, and deep-fried cow brains, the two who finished their plate the fastest would win. It’s still unknown whether any of the queens ever ate chicken again.

3 Warhol Ball

For this disco-inspired challenge, the All-Stars 3 queens had to design two looks. One of them was a gorgeous outfit that could have been worn to Studio 54, the other was a giant branded soup can.

The branding challenges usually give the queens a lot of room to express themselves, but how stellar can someone really make a soup can? Trixie’s “Pep/Abysmal” soup was clever, and Shangela’s “Caffeinated Halleloops” was hilarious, but at the end of the day, it’s drag queens wearing soup cans. Who knows what the producers were thinking with this one.

2 DILFS On The Runway

Another ridiculous season 4 challenge, in episode 10 the queens had to makeover a “DILF” (aka an attractive father) to become their drag sister. The only twist was that they both had to be pregnant.

Every queen and their partner was dressed in full-to-toe drag, complete with a fake baby bump. When Latrice Royale landed in the bottom alongside Kenya Michaels, the two had to lip-sync to Aretha Franklin’s “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman”, baby bumps and all. In a shockingly heartfelt turn, Latrice stayed in one spot, embodying the emotion of the song as she clutched her (fake) unborn child.

1 Rats: The Rusical

While previous musicals have focused on subjects like Madonna or the Kardashians, the second season of Drag Race UK went for a straight-up parody of the Tony award-winning musical/6-time Razzie-winning movie Cats.

Each of the queens was in full rat drag, and sang their hearts out to a crossbreed of the original Cats and the classic Drag Race narrative. Queue Tayce and Ellie Diamond singing:

RuPaul’s Rat Race, whiskers twitching. RuPaul’s Rat Race, may the best rodent win.

Regardless of the bewildering set-up, Bimini Bon Boulash and Awhora slayed as the evil punk rats Depravity and Diptheria. Veronica Green stunned viewers with her vocals until she revealed a litter hanging off her rhinestoned rat nipples. Meanwhile, Tia Kofi stole the show as Specimen One, a lab rat who has been experimented on, revealing an ear growing out of her back as she belted out a parody rendition of “Memories”.

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