Music

Doja Cat on Casting Her Mother in “Gorgeous” Video: ‘It Blew My Mind’

Doja Cat's mom, Deborah Sawyer, made her music video debut in the video for her daughter's new single "Gorgeous."

YouTube/Doja Cat
YouTube/Doja Cat

Doja Cat's mother, Deborah Elizabeth Sawyer, had her moment to shine in the "Gorgeous" music video.

Nearly one week after the release of Doja's fifth album, Vie, the Grammy winner was a guest on podcast Angie Martinez IRL and discussed her mom's "Gorgeous" cameo. Some of the world’s biggest models like Anok Yai, Paloma Elsesser and Irina Shayk starred in the video, but it was Sawyer who upstaged them all.

"I put her in my video...and she served," Doja told Martinez around the 11-minute mark of the video below. "You only get like two seconds of that. And she when she was on set, she came into set like totally fine. She was just really happy to see me. Lots of smiles. And then like we talked a little bit. Then we got in front of camera. I helped kind of dress her a little bit to make [her] feel like the mom that I
know."

Doja added that Sawyer looked "evolved and incredible," which the rapper was awestruck by. "She hit my vape," Doja revealed.

"I didn't know that she would come in front of camera... I was like, 'Who are you? Because she really was — if you look at all of the whatever playback that we have —she's like just really giving like," she added with gestures of her mom posing.

"And was like, Oh, that's why I do that half as good," Doja continued. "And I was like, 'Okay that's where it comes from.' I always knew when she did her makeup in front of the mirror she was always [posing]. But I didn't know like in front of a camera that she would absolutely ace every single take. Even while they were doing her makeup and we were kind of just watching the live and it wasn't recording or anything, she was still serving. ... It blew my mind."

Doja added that she now wants to dress her mom "all the time and bring her everywhere." "I mean, I always do, but I loved having her on set with me and that's something that I'm not scared of anymore," she concluded.

Earlier in the conversation, Doja had a more serious reflection about her "tough childhood" and being one of five children to a single mother, which she called "a hard thing to do." "She's incredible, the strongest mother, but like it taught me a lot of things and I think it also made me, in some form, stronger," Doja said about her upbringing.

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