Purple Bong Crashes New Jersey Town Meeting With Lizzo Parody

When you’re running a township committee meeting in New Jersey, the last thing you expect is a man in a full-body purple bong costume commandeering the public comment podium. But that’s exactly what happened on Tuesday when a performance artist known as Bongholeo strolled up to the microphone in Cranford with something to say—or rather, sing.

What made this stunt genuinely memorable wasn’t just the costume (though yes, it was a full, detailed bong). It was the commitment to the bit. Bongholeo introduced himself and his son, Bongholito, before launching into a parody of Lizzo’s“About Damn Time,”reworking the lyrics to“It’s big bong o’clock / yeah, it’s hit thirty.”He held the stage for a solid three and a half minutes while the audience sat in near-total silence, with maybe one person showing even a flicker of amusement. The deadpan crowd response somehow made it funnier—a room full of local officials forced to endure a cannabis-themed musical moment at their own meeting.

This isn’t Bongholeo’s first rodeo with the local government scene. Back in October 2024, he got booted from an Edison council meeting after criticizing the panel. So either the guy’s got a genuine axe to grind with municipal governance, or he’s discovered the perfect format for his particular brand of performance art: official public comment periods that can’t technically stop him from speaking (at least not immediately). Either way, he nails the execution—nobody can say he doesn’t know his audience, even if that audience doesn’t know what hit them.

The real question here is whether Bongholeo’s appearances signal something about how public participation in local government has shifted, or if he’s just found the perfect backdrop for absurdist comedy. Either way, Cranford’s township committee now has a story that’ll outlive every zoning ordinance they passed that day.