How My Bütt Went Viral on the Internet

Burlesque performer Michelle L'Amour posted a video of herself twerking her butt to Beethoven (ahem, Butthoven) that has been viewed more than four million times — and she's laughing her, well, áss off about it. Here's the story behind her viral sensation.

I’ve always had this weird talent of bütt jiggling. I’m a burlesque dancer, so dancing around in G-strings is the norm for me.

It’s such a rude thing, to bounce your bütt to classical music, but I had this idea for quite a while. I have a background in classical music — I used to play the violin — and I kept thinking it would be funny to bounce my cheeks to Beethoven specifically. It lends itself to a great pun. If you have a great pun, you have to do it.

So one day, I thought, I’m going to put it together, slap a bowtie on my áss, and do a little dance.
I performed it at my club in Chicago almost two years ago, and decided a few months later to put it online because I was kind of bored. Like, let’s see what happens! I just found out it has over four million views.

My phone keeps buzzing. People keep tagging it and sharing it and commenting. I’m so tickled by this whole thing. But in real life, people don’t know it’s me. I was thinking, what if I just walked around with no pánts on? I would get recognized more.

When I’m performing, I’m pretty much laughing the whole time. And hoping my butt doesn’t get a cramp. Sometimes if I practice too much during the day it will lock up. Oh, it's happened. One cheek will cramp up. I’ll just use the other one.

After I did the act, I printed out the sheet music for Beethoven’s5th, and a friend of mine redid it for me. He wrote out the stage direction for my bütt, just for fun. Now I use it every time I perform.

I’ve been performing for a little over ten years. I started in college. I went to the University of Illinois in Champaign and got my degree in finance. Finance! But I realized, I don’t want to sit on my butt all day. Even though that’s what I’m doing. I studied all the classical forms of dance and ending up getting into burlesque right before I graduated. I became completely obsessed. I realized, this is what I’m supposed to be doing.

Coming from a dance background — talk about body issues. I think I always struggled because I am small-chested. I didn't even consider that people might like a butt. I was too focused on the fact that I was smaller on top. That was trouble for me. I’m also a pale-skinned girl — I’m not the tanned, six-feet-tall supermodel type. When you’re growing up, that’s hard to deal with. But now? I love it. I teach burlesque, and I tell my students, “Let it jiggle. Let it swing. Let it sway. You’re going to be happier and everyone behind you is going to be happier, too.”


I think burlesque should definitely have humor in it. A lot of my acts are pretty steamy and séxual, but there is humor to them — just not right off the bat, like this number. This number is pure ridiculous. The audience is laughing because it’s like, is this still happening? Is she still doing it? I thought adding the page turn in the music was pretty hilarious, too.


My husband is proud, to say the least. He’s the one who filmed it! I always test out my new moves on him. He was the first one to see Butthoven. My test audience.
I’ll definitely have something special out for the holidays. Let’s just say it rhymes it with "nutcracker."

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