In an effort to build a space for queer people like myself, every Tuesday I’ll be posting opinion pieces, listicals, reviews, and more focused on the LGBT community (and occasionally about the Latinx/WOC community since I am Latinx.) Welcome to Queerly Not Straight! Enjoy and leave a comment below if you have a suggestion for what I should cover next.
Sherry Pie, a contestant on this season’s RuPaul’s Drag Race, has been disqualified and it couldn’t happen to a worse person. #ISaidWhatISaid. Because what is happening to Sherry Pie isn’t a witch hunt or cancel culture. This is consequences for everything that she has done, that’s been revealed, and that has yet to be unearthed.
Let’s take a step back.
Eight men have come forward in accusing Sherry Pie of catfishing. I know, that doesn’t sound bad initially, but wait a sec and trust me as we dive in a little more. Sherry Pie posed as a well-connected casting director looking for the next big star. She used her “position” to trick men into believing they were on the road to stardom.
But that’s not where it stops. It gets worse.
According to Buzzfeed News, Sherry Pie posed as Allison Mossey in a series of email interactions between 2015 and 2017. And according to NBC News the interactions and emails didn’t end until December 2019 for one of the accusers. In these emails she coaxed these men into providing “humiliating and degrading audition tapes.”
We’re talking demeaning audition tapes with scripts meant to embarrass and push the actors into uncomfortable and shameful positions. One person even accused Sherry Pie of coercing him into masturbating on film as part of this audition; a truly disgusting act that will scar this person and that we hope seeks the help they need.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, one of the accusers said that Mossey, played by Sherry Pie, convinced him to take steroids. Over a year and a half this man, revealed to be Daniel Marandola from New York by NBC News, was paid to purchase steroids to bulk up and be considered for a role Mossey said would be “a New York stage production, or a Hulu production.”
You would think that Sherry Pie would deny it all after the Buzzfeed News article came out. To everyone’s surprise, she didn’t. She confirmed that she had caused these young men trauma and pain that is unforgivable. She even said that she was disgusted by herself. Shortly thereafter Sherry Pie was disqualified from RuPaul’s Drag Race and the accusations of a witch hunt and cancel culture started flying around aka the whole point of this piece.
Because this isn’t a witch hunt and this isn’t cancel culture rearing its ugly head. Sherry Pie has confirmed that she is the perpetrator of these disgusting acts. It’s facts and truths, not lies and insinuations. And it pisses me off to no end that people can’t see that these are the consequences of her actions and everything that she deserves.
You don’t go around, hurting people like this, and expect to be given sympathy or a pat on the back followed by “it’s ok, you’re not that bad and you’re not cancelled.” It IS that bad and she is cancelled. And not because cancel culture rode in on its horse and cancelled Sherry Pie. Nope. This drag queen cancelled herself when she thought it was ok to hurt, manipulate, and degrade these young men for her pleasure.
And we’re not here for it or any Sherry Pie apologists that go, “But think of what she’s going through.” We don’t give a shit what she’s going through and that’s the truth. Sherry Pie is the perpetrator, she’s the one who hurt those men on purpose. It wasn’t an accident and we’re not giving her a shred of sympathy because these are the consequences of your actions.
Consequences is what happens when you hurt and degrade people. Consequences is what happens when you cheat people out of opportunities. And consequences is what happens when you lie and when you think you can use people as your play things.
Sherry Pie is not above the consequences for her actions and that’s the tea.
Queerly Not Straight posts every Tuesday with opinion pieces, listicals, reviews, and more focused on the LGBT community (and occasionally about the Latinx community since I am Latinx.)
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