On HBO’s We’re Here, co-host Bob the Drag Queen used his niece to perform as his giant wig falling from the drag queen’s head and having a life of its own.
The clip from the show went viral for its amazing, family-oriented wig reveal (when a drag queen pulls off a wig to show something that was previously hidden underneath it). And Bob was crowned best guncle.
Bob the Drag Queen, winner of season 8 of RuPaul’s Drag Race, is currently a co-host of HBO’s Emmy-nominated reality show We’re Here, where drag queens travel around America to host fierce drag shows, recruiting locals to participate.
In the video, Bob walks out on stage with an enormous wig on his head. She dances a bit with the backup performers, and then falls over, wig on the floor.
“I’m sorry, y’all, I’m sorry,” she says, bald on the ground. “Can we start that over, back over, my wig… I’m sorry, that was embarrassing, my wig fell off.”
Bob starts to walk off and then turns around to see the wig standing up – Bob’s middle school-aged niece was in there the entire time, and now she’s wearing the wig as a dress.
The niece/guncle pair then start dancing before Bob introduced her niece as her “real-life niece, Miss Neveah.”
Bob later revealed that his niece was sitting on his shoulders the whole first part of the performance. “Well, she’s 11 years old and like 80 pounds, so it wasn’t that hard,” he told Vulture. “But was she heavy for a wig? Sure, yeah. I’ve wanted to do that number for a very long time. I actually used to plan it in New York City with a tiny friend of mine, but we never got around to doing it; I just never actually had the proper venue to do it or the right scene partner. And when they were discussing who should do it, I said, “Well, you know, my niece is a really talented performer, she’s a gymnast, she can dance. She’s really good.” We didn’t even get to use half of her skills in that performance. She’s an insanely talented gymnast. But it was our first chance to perform together, so I was very excited to get a chance to perform with my wonderful niece. And I’m very grateful that her mother and father were kind enough to allow her to do it with us. She was like, “I don’t like doing gymnastics and dancing anymore, but I’ll do it for you.” So she came out of retirement for me, 11-year-old retirement.”
We’re Here was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award last year for Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program. The show, hosted by Bob along with fellow Drag Race alums Eureka and Shangela, is currently in its second season.