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Eric Booker

American competitive eater and rapper

Image credit is listed at the end of this article.

Eric James "Badlands" Booker (born June 21, 1969), also known by his online pseudonym BadlandsChugs, is an American competitive eating athlete, rapper, and YouTuber. He holds seven Major League Eating recognized world records, three Guinness World Records, is a four-time Nathan's Lemonade Chugging Contest champion, and competed in the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest every year from 1997 to 2018.

01Biography

By age 20, Booker began training his chug skills and training to compete in food championships. Booker lives on Long Island, he’s 6 ft 5+14 in (1.96 m) tall and weighs 400 lb (180 kg).

He appeared on America's Got Talent in 2025.

02Competitive eating career

Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest results

2020 Contest 20 5th place
2018 Contest 20 21st place
2017 Contest 22 T-14th place
2016 Contest 25 12th place
2015 Contest 24.5 9th place
2014 Contest 25 9th place
2013 Contest 21 15th place
2012 Contest 25.5 12th place
2010 Contest 24 T-12th place
2009 Contest 30 T-10th place
2008 Contest 25.5 11th place
2006 Contest 24.5 9th place
2005 Contest 22 T-10th place
2004 Contest 27 T-5th place
2003 Contest 29 3rd place
2002 Contest 26 2nd place
2001 Contest 22 T-7th place
2000 Contest 20 T-10th place
1999 Contest 17 10th place
1998 Contest 18 2nd place
1997 Contest 17 8th place

Booker trains for competitions by trying to stretch his stomach and develop jaw strength. He eats large amounts of fruit and vegetables and drinks gallons of water in a sitting position in order to stretch his stomach and chews over 20 pieces of gum at a time to build jaw strength. He maintains that competitive eating is a healthy sport and has lost weight since he began competing. As of 2022, he is ranked 27th by the IFOCE. Booker is also known for his YouTube channel, BadlandsChugs, in which he primarily performs soda chugging challenges, including Mountain Dew, Sprite, Gatorade, and milk. In 2019, over the span of a year, his YouTube channel amassed over 3 million subscribers.

Nathan's Lemonade Chugging Contest (2021-present)

At the 2021 Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest, Booker won a lemonade drinking contest by consuming one gallon of lemonade in under 40 seconds. He captured his second lemonade chugging contest title in 2022, and repeated in 2023, setting a record of 23.08 seconds. In 2024, he continued his lemonade-chugging winning streak, breaking his 2023 record with a time of 21 seconds.

For the 2025 contest, Booker drank a gallon and a half of lemonade. He drank a gallon of lemonade in 21 seconds to capture his sixth consecutive title in 2026.

Accomplishments

Some of Booker's accomplishments include:

  • Burritos: 15 BurritoVille burritos/ 8 minutes
  • Candy bars: Two Pounds Chocolate Candy Bars / 6 minutes
  • Cannoli: 16.5 cannoli in six minutes / 2004
  • Corned Beef Hash: 4 pounds of hash / 1 minute 58 seconds
  • Cheesecake (Mini): 50 Mini-Cheesecakes / 6 minutes
  • Doughnuts: 49 glazed doughnuts / 8 minutes
  • Hamentaschen: 50 Hamentaschen / 6 minutes
  • Matzo Ball (Ben's Deli): 21 baseball-sized (half-pound) matzo balls / 5 minutes, 25 seconds / 2003
  • Matzo Balls (Ruthie & Gussie's): 30 matzo balls / 5 minutes, 25 seconds
  • Raw Onions: 8.5 ounces Maui Onions (three onions)/ Whalers Village / 1 minute/ August 8, 2004
  • Peas: 9.5 one-pound bowls / 12 minutes
  • Pumpkin pies: 4+38 Entenmann's Pumpkin Pies / 12 Minutes/ November 22, 2004
  • Lemonade: Nathan's Famous chug contest / 1 gallon lemonade / 21 seconds / July 4, 2024
  • In May 2021, he set the Guinness World Record for the fastest time to drink two litres of soda (18.45 seconds).
  • In June 2022, he set two more Guinness World Records, drinking 1 liter of soda in 6.8 seconds and 1 liter of tomato sauce in 1 minute and 18 seconds.

03Music career

Since 2004, Booker has performed and recorded competitive eating themed hip-hop as Badlands Booker, and he frequently performs selections from his albums at competitions. Besides his own nine albums, Booker has also made guest appearances on albums by Jendor and Loser's Lounge. Much of the music used on his YouTube channel is created by himself and his son Brandon Booker (OKHIPHOP).

Discography
Title Year
Hungry & Focused 2004
Hungry & Focused II: The Ingestion Engine 2005
Hungry & Focused III: The Reframing 2006
Hungry & Focused IV: Fork, Knife & Mic 2007
Extended Play 2009
Surf & Stillwell 2010
Big Man Mentality 2011
Surf & Stillwell 2 2017
Surf & Stillwell 3 2018
Big Man Mentality 2 2019
Watch videos about Eric BookerExplainers and documentaries on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article Eric Booker, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

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