Although RuPaul’s Drag Race might get a fraction of the ratings of reality competition shows like Top Chef or The Amazing Race, for nine seasons now, the drag queen competition has been a centerpiece of LGBT culture. For many of us LGBT folk, we welcome a season of Drag Race the way the hetero world awaits the NBA playoffs or the Superbowl. It may also be the only reality competition series that has its own yearly convention (RuPaul’s Drag Con)–basically, the show is a big deal for us. And for the season 9 premiere episode, which aired last week, it became an even bigger deal, as the series finally welcomed arguably the biggest icon for the gay community of the 21st century as a guest judge. I’m speaking, of course, of Lady Gaga herself.

On the first episode of any season of Drag Race, each queen makes her big entrance into the work room, strutting their stuff and (usually) shouting out what (they hope) might end up being their catch phrase. After this year’s 13 contestants made their entrance, Lady Gaga made hers, covered from head to toe in what essentially amounted to Lady Gaga cosplay. At first, the other queens had no idea this wasn’t another drag queen, and one of them even thought it was probably an incredible Lady Gaga impersonator from Las Vegas (home of all the best celebrity impersonation queens, ya know). You can watch Gaga’s big entrance into the unsuspecting Drag Race workroom in the video above.

Of course, the minute Gaga started to speak, the queens knew something was off; a female voice is the hardest thing to mimic, and that is one of the most famous voices in the world, after all. When Gaga dropped the act and revealed herself as the guest judge on the first episode, the queens’ collective jaws all hit the floor. And you can understand why — not only had they found themselves on the most important LGBT show in the world, they were in the presence of the biggest icon for the LGBT community of our time. One of the contestants, Eureka, got super emotional meeting her, and told her how she’d even saved her life. You can watch the emotional moment down below:

Of course, Gaga still had to help judge each of the girls individually, as the final runway challenge was for each of the contestants to do their own Gaga inspired look. When Gaga saw what the ladies had come up with, it was her turn to get all emotional. She even went backstage later to not only thank the queens, but also to give each of the girls pointers and advice on their looks. You can watch the entire RuPaul’s Drag Race Untucked video with Gaga by clicking here.

RuPaul‘s Drag Race now airs Fridays at 8 P.M. on VH1, switching over from Logo, which will continue to air encore viewings.

What did you think of Gaga’s big entrance? Would you have been fooled too? Let us know your thoughts down below in the comments.

Images: World of Wonder