When professional nanny Eli Thomas was slapping on his drag makeup, ready for Halloween night in New York City, he couldn’t have imagined his look would be immortalized in a viral YouTube vid.
Eli stumbled across the internet-famous busker and YouTuber, Guitaro5000 (a.k.a. Reginald Guillaume), who’d set up shop on a busy NYC corner asking strangers to “Sing with me for free.”
What happened next has amassed more than 5.7 million views since hitting the site back in 2021, and Music Man readers can watch it all unfold in the video above…
Eli was dolled up just like Doris from the Shrek franchise; cropped hair, purple dress, and over-the-top drag makeup bearing an uncanny resemblance to the animated legend. But little did the professional nanny know that his hilarious fancy dress stunt would become the stuff of YouTube legend as soon as he stepped up to the mic.
Eli picks a song to perform: “When I Was Your Man” by Bruno Mars – a track that might wrack most singers with nerves as they dared to match Bruno’s iconic vocals. Yet Eli takes to the stage unswayed by nerves, oozing a natural confidence as he introduces the spontaneous cover to the crowd.
He earns an instant round of applause as his buttery vocals melt the audience, pitch-perfect and flocked with a sense of star power that keeps his listeners gripped through every high note, R&B ad lib, and chillingly great chorus.
It’s an unmatched example of discovering jaw-dropping talent hidden in the most unlikely places; voices that could top the charts finally being pulled out of obscurity, and the age-old notion of never judging a book by its cover.
And as this clip took YouTube by storm, over six thousand viewers poured out their thoughts in the comments section. After one viewer noticed, “He’s not just an incredible singer, he’s a performer! There was audience interaction, he was having a great time, he was confident. If he pursued a career in music he would do really well,” another joked, “When he said ‘wish me luck’ he didn’t need it lol.”
Other viewers were gobsmacked by Eli’s impossible song choice as they shared, “Not sure if you realise how hard that song is to sing [but] he killed it, wow,” and noticed, “When you mess up the lyrics and STILL hold the audience – You are doing good! Not only a good singer – But a showman as well!”