RuPaul: 'Lip Sync Battle' a ripoff of 'Drag Race'

NEW YORK, March 24 (UPI) -- Television personality RuPaul isn't impressed with Spike TV's hit show Lip Sync Battle, hosted by LL Cool J. Instead, he says it's a ripoff of his own show.

The drag supermodel, 55, told Vulture magazine in a recent interview he doesn't often think about the star-studded competition, where celebrities compete to see who has the best lip syncing skills, adding "It's a poor ripoff of our show," RuPaul's Drag Race.

With lip syncing acting as a major factor for determining which queens move forward on his show, RuPaul noted "straight pop culture has liberally lifted things from gay culture as long as I can remember. And that's fine...we have so much more where that comes from."

"That's why [my new show] Gay for Play is such a fun thing, because we've taken the best of the gay sensibility and put it all in one place," he continued.

"And we're showing these [expletives] how it's really done. But it's funny how that works, even in gay culture. There's a certain 'gay shame.' Gay people will accept a straight pop star over a gay pop star, or they will accept a straight version of a gay thing, because there's still so much self-loathing, you know?"

But RuPaul knows his show gives strength to those otherwise lost. He told the magazine much of the queens on the show come from places in which they were "alienated and ostracized." Drag then, he agreed, was an art form about survival.

"And even in the face of such adversity, they prevailed and shine today. So it's a story of strength. That's what the appeal is for the audience. Here are these people who have prevailed and succeeded against insurmountable odds. It's a great story for anyone who watches."

RuPaul's upcoming show Gay for Play will be a pop-culture trivia show where contestants receive an opportunity to win over $5,000 a game. The show will include a celebrity panel. "It's the gay aesthetic done by gay people," he said.

"Sex and the City was a show that was a gay aesthetic done by straight women. That's what made it successful. And it starred New York City. So we decided to take our gay aesthetic and put it on a game show and do it the way it should be done."