Liza Minnelli Makes Uncommon Public Appearance For RuPaul’s Drag Race Finale

The true star of Friday’s season 17 finale of RuPaul’s Drag Race wasn’t its winning queen or its host, RuPaul Charles. Instead, it was Liza Minnelli who stole the show, taking a seat in a massive, onstage throne for a pre-crowning bit of banter with RuPaul.

Minnelli, the 79-year-old stage and screen icon and daughter of Judy Garland and director Vincente Minnelli, was awarded the show’s third-ever “Giving Us Lifetime Achievement Award.” Previous recipients include Cassandra Peterson (better known, perhaps, as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark) and designer Bob Mackie.

Revealed to the crowd as her 1972 version of “Ring Them Bells” played, a Halston-clad Minnelli reclined on her throne as the audience stood, clapped, and chanted “Liza.” “Look at you!” she said to RuPaul, admiring the host’s tulle-laden look. “I know. It only took six hours,” replied the 64-year-old RuPaul.

“Seven for me,” Liza Minnelli shot back. “I’m older than you.”

RuPaul, a noted appreciator of ancient Hollywood lore, asked Minnelli about her childhood on the MGM lot. “Everybody would rush to see whatever my mother was doing, and my father, especially, because he was making people do magic,” Minnelli said. “Oh, he was the best.”

The Drag Race host also asked about a 1980s-era newspaper photo of Minnelli “holding a guitar to go record with the Pet Shop Boys … why were you holding a guitar?”

“Because they told me to hold it,” Minnelli responded. “What would you do?” she asked the chuckling crowd. “I’m a director’s daughter!”

Speaking with Variety, Drag Race producer Tom Campbell says that Minnelli’s appearance on the finale came straight from Ru, herself. “She seemed un-gettable, like that’s too much to ask for,” Campbell said, but the competition show lucked out. “Her management were also big fans of Drag Race, and they know what we’ve done, and they know the heart of the show, and they’re invested as viewers.”