“Sorry Not Sorry”: An Oral History of the Greatest ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Lip Sync Ever

It was the headstand heard around the world—and if you’re wondering what a headstand sounds like, it sounds like hundreds of patrons at a gay bar screaming incoherently at the top of their lungs. That sound, a cacophonous blast of “You betta werk!” and “yaaas!”, rang out across the globe at approximately 10:28 p.m. ET on April 18, 2019 when RuPaul’s Drag Race aired the best lip sync in the show’s herstory.

There are a lot of contenders for the Greatest Drag Race Lip Sync crown. It’s hard to top Latrice Royale’s “Natural Woman” moment, or the double shantays of Raven and Jujubee or Alyssa Edwards and Tatianna in their All Stars seasons. Sasha Velour’s rose petal reveal in the Season 9 finale upped the bar something fierce, inspiring so many imitators (RIP to all those butterflies). Drag Race fans can rattle off their favorite lip syncs because they’re a quintessential part of drag culture, and this Emmy-winning show treats this super niche art as legit performance art.

The lip sync showdowns make for great television because they give the bottom two competitors of the week one last chance to bare their souls, give it their all, and claw their way back from the brink. That’s why this feature of the Drag Race format results in so many gag-worthy moments—and that’s where Season 11’s Yvie Oddly and Brooke Lynn Hytes come into play with those headstands (plural). These two killer queens stunted like never before, flipping and twisting and vogueing and mugging through a barnburner of a track, leaving the main stage scorched underneath them.

In looking back at the past year of pop culture, the “Sorry Not Sorry” lip sync from Drag Race Season 11 stands as not only the drag moment of the year, but as one of the greatest moments in the show’s long history. To celebrate this monumental showdown, Decider reached out to those that were in the room where those headstands happened.

After dominating all season long (Yvie Oddly with 1 win and 5 more weeks with high scores, Brooke Lynn Hytes with 2 wins, and 4 more weeks with high scores), the two frontrunners fall in the bottom after a lackluster showing in the “Snatch Game” challenge. Prior to the lip sync, the Season 11 queens await their fate backstage while the judges deliberate.

Yvie Oddly (season 11 contestant): The “Snatch Game” didn’t go as planned, but no one plans to be in the bottom. I mean I guess I always could have been in the bottom. You don’t know.

Shuga Cain (season 11 contestant): The vibe was tense for the girls because they had bombed the most important episode. I can’t remember too much of what Yvie and Brooke where doing [backstage] because I was celebrating with cocktails how well I had done that week!

Nina West (season 11 contestant): Brooke Lynn, off-camera, was listening to the music a lot and walking around lip syncing to it, and just kind of putting herself in game mode. Yvie was doing kind of the same, but from what I remember of [the backstage companion show] Untucked, I don’t remember them really doing much. I don’t remember them really flexing muscles [or] trying to psych each other out at all.

Upon returning to the main stage, it’s made official: Yvie Oddly and Brooke Lynn Hytes are up for elimination and will lip sync against each other to “Sorry Not Sorry” by Demi Lovato (courtesy of Virgin Records). The task of capturing the lip sync falls to Drag Race director Nick Murray.

Nick Murray (director): In a tuckshell, Drag Race is shot with 7 to 9 cameras depending on the segment/situation or challenge. I come up with a plan of how to shoot the challenge/scene and decide which camera is shooting what during the scene to make sure we can cover it in a rich, visually and enticing way—to draw the viewer in so they both feel and see what they are watching… The order of the shots you see in the actual show are decided in the edit using the coverage from all the cameras I have used during the shoot.

Brooke Lynn Hytes (season 11 contestant): I love [“Sorry Not Sorry”] and used to perform it a lot, so I was happy to hear that was the song I would be lip syncing to.

Nick Murray: I think within the first 30 seconds we all knew it was going to be something special. There was a certain air of expectation and they both delivered and then some!

Shuga Cain: At first [the lip sync] was pretty mellow, almost borderline boring, so no—I had no idea they were going to turn it out.

The tone changes right as the first chorus kicks in, when Yvie Oddly tosses her two props (a clutch and a can of hairspray) and does a forward flip that includes a wig reveal.

Yvie Oddly: I have done both [the hairspray bit and wig reveal] before for other acts, and I think they went smooth. I mean, as smooth as a wig reveal can be mid-flip/tumble.

Tony Hale (guest judge): I just had to watch [the lip sync] again to refresh my memory and Yvie’s wig coming off was pretty epic.

Michael Roha (editor): They did perform the entire song. The song itself is only about 3:30, so we really didn’t have to leave that much on the cutting room floor. Since this was such a pivotal moment in the season for these two queens, I just wanted to make it as big and explosive as possible.

Murray: For a lot of the lip syncs there is a camera placed with a wide-angle lens slightly lower than the other cameras which is used to show the full width of the stage and a lot of the lights in the air. It’s a cool shot that captures all the action that’s happening on the stage.

Roha: A lot of the biggest, gaggiest moments happened around the choruses—so the challenge became how to feature all of them without losing the rhythm of the song, or making it feel monotonous.

The judges respond to the stunts with an almost uncharacteristic amount of enthusiasm. RuPaul, who has seen every lip sync in Drag Race history, even lets out a “What?!”

Brooke Lynn Hytes: We were feeding off [the judges’] energy.

Yvie Oddly: I was so in the performance at the moment I didn’t see their reactions exactly.

Roha: I don’t want to take the viewers’ eyes off the action for too long, so I keep [cutaways to the judges] brief, but I really let Ru and the judges’ own reactions do the directing for the most part.

Hale: Every week for the past 15 years, good friends of ours have come over and we pick a reality show to watch. And a couple of those years, we got really into Drag Race.

Roha: Seeing our guest judges excited, laughing, and cheering the queens on just brings that much more life to the performance, especially when it’s Ru cackling, pointing, and just getting her life in the moment.

During the song’s bridge, Brooke Lynn Hytes ups the ante with a headstand—and Yvie Oddly takes note.

Shuga Cain: The headstand!

Brooke Lynn Hytes: I love throwing that move in when I can. At that moment I was not going home, so I was pulling out all the stops.

Roha: Like, you think you’ve seen it all and then bam—Brooke Lynn’s in a headstand?!

Yvie Oddly responds to Brooke Lynn Hytes’ headstand by doing a headstand of her own, which gives the lip sync a call-and-response feel that’s unique to the entire “Sorry Not Sorry” moment.

Nina West: I was like, “Oh my God, Yvie’s pulling out these tricks!” Then it was like, Brooke Lynn just kind of took that as, “Okay, I see a trick and I raised it.”

Brooke Lynn Hytes: [The back-and-forth] wasn’t intentional. I didn’t even realize what Yvie had done until the actual episode aired.

Yvie Oddly: We were vibing, doing our own thing.

Shuga Cain: Once they started doing all those tricks and one-upping each other, the energy changed! It was so fun and you could feel it. It was so much better in-person!

Hale: [Seeing a lip sync in-person] is the best. We taped the show way before it aired, so I didn’t have any knowledge of the contestants coming in. Loved learning all their stories.

During Yvie Oddly’s headstand, she shows off her mostly bare backside, and the edit gives Tony Hale a reaction moment.

Hale: I definitely wasn’t expecting that wardrobe choice.

Roha: Tony really got into this lip sync. In the edit, I always aim to convey that playful energy that happens in the back-and-forth of the performance on set, while still keeping the underlying drive and tension of the competition alive. I also look out for those naturally humorous moments because I assume if I think they’re funny, others will too.

Hale: Also, Brooke checking her manicure while in a split. Come on. That’s a show!

In the ramp-up to the song’s finale, Yvie Oddly flips out of her headstand and almost immediately into a shablam in a move reminiscent of the one that left her briefly injured in Episode 6. 

Yvie Oddly: Sometimes my body reacts differently to things, sometimes walking the same way I always do can hurt.

At this moment, the edit cuts away to show Yvie Oddly’s flip while Brooke Lynn Hytes executes an unseen move.

Brooke Lynn Hytes: I did a rockstar slide on my knees all the way down the runway from the back of the stage.

Roha: We worked to balance the performance to show the best of both queens throughout. At the end of the day, I think “Sorry Not Sorry” is a standout lip sync for two reasons: Brooke Lynn Hytes and Yvie Oddly.

Nina West: To think back to watching in-person, from behind, really watching the judges’ expressions was really kind of an amazing thing to witness.

With the duel over, Brooke Lynn Hytes and Yvie Oddly are left to wonder who will be eliminated.

Yvie Oddly: I felt I slayed, but I had the feeling Brooke did too. I actually felt very content that it was over, more so.

Brooke Lynn Hytes: I had a feeling we both might stay. The vibe was very intense in the room.

Murray: The initial feeling [on set] was “wow.” We all knew that we had witnessed one of the best of all time. The sheer passion, the want and desire to win. To show Ru all their charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent, from both performers—it was the definition of what a lip sync for your life and what RuPaul’s Drag Race should be!

Nina West: I’m sure everyone had a sense of who they thought was going to go home because that’s how we’re conditioned to believe it’s going to be, and you don’t know that the double save is going to happen.

The double save does happen, not the first in Drag Race history but quite possibly the first to have an oral history published about it. Now the queens have to sit on this secret for months while they wait for the episode to air live.

Brooke Lynn Hytes: [Watching it live] was a really exciting moment. I knew what was going to happen, but seeing it on TV in a bar full of fans at Roscoe’s was surreal.

Roha: My goal in the edit was for them to both shine throughout and to leave the audience gagged.

Yvie Oddly: I was excited because double shantays are always exciting.

Nina West: When you watch it on TV, it’s like the Super Bowl of drag. I was hosting a viewing party in a gay bar. People were loud and they were screaming, throwing their hands up, stomping on their feet—it was insane.

Brooke Lynn Hytes: [Demi Lovato] messaged me on Instagram and said she loved it!

Now, eight months after the episode aired, Yvie Oddly and Brooke Lynn Hytes have a new relationship with “Sorry Not Sorry.”

Yvie Oddly: Well, now it has become quite a requested number [for me] to do. It’s a good song.

Brooke Lynn Hytes: It’s a great song. Only happy memories go through my mind.

Yvie Oddly: It holds a special place now, just like [Season 11 finale lip sync song] “Edge of Glory.” At first it was a bit annoying how that was always associated during the time on Drag Race, but now I’m so appreciative for those songs.

Nina West: You don’t get that kind of legendary, epic lip sync every season.

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