Drake has awarded CAD$10,000 to the winner of his lookalike contest in Toronto – find out more below.
On Saturday (December 14), Toronto, Canada’s Casuals Cakery held a contest to find the city’s best Drake lookalike. The grand prize was initially meant to be a bottle of Hennessy and a pack of cigars.
However, Drake caught wind of the contest and sent Casuals Cakery a DM on Instagram, saying that he would be contributing “10 bands” to the contest “as the main prize”. The exchange was shared on Instagram via Casuals Cakery, who replied to Drake: “Just give me a min to stop hyperventilating this moment… I can’t believe this is ur account and u know about this omg i love you”.
Ultimately, no singular contestant won the lookalike competition – instead, a group of contestants were declared the winners together and would likely have to split the prize pot.
Drake did not attend the Toronto event, but shared clips of the event on now-expired Instagram stories.
The event marks the latest celebrity lookalike contest to be held in recent months. The lookalike contest craze kicked off in October, when a Timothée Chalamet lookalike contest was held at Washington Square Park in Downtown Manhattan. Chalamet made a surprise attendance at the event, and has since offered to pay the police fine incurred by the organiser for hosting it without a permit and drawing in a crowd of around 900 people.
Since then, lookalike contests have been held for the likes of Glen Powell, Paul Mescal, Zendaya and more. Powell called into the contest in his honour to promise the winner a cameo in one of his upcoming films.
Drake has spent a significant portion of the year feuding with Kendrick Lamar – who last month surprise-released a new album, ‘GNX’. Over the course of their feud, the two rappers released several disses aimed at each other – with some of their disses dropping within days, and even hours, of the other’s.
Drake also recently filed two legal actions against Universal Music Group in relation to ‘Not Like Us’. The first dispute, filed in New York, alleges that UMG “artificially inflated” streaming numbers for ‘Not Like Us’ and involved undisclosed “pay-to-play” schemes.
The second dispute – filed in Texas – alleges defamation, claiming that UMG “knowingly” approved of ‘Not Like Us’ being released despite Kendrick Lamar’s lyrics alleging that Drake is a “pedophile”.
Kendrick Lamar’s team have yet to respond to NME‘s attempts to reach out for comment. Meanwhile UMG said regarding both filings: “The suggestion that UMG would do anything to undermine any of its artists is offensive and untrue. We employ the highest ethical practices in our marketing and promotional campaigns. No amount of contrived and absurd legal arguments in this pre-action submission can mask the fact that fans choose the music they want to hear.”
