Darius Jeremy Pierce, identified to viewers of We’re Here and RuPaul’s Drag Race because the drag queen Shangela, has been accused of rape by a former crew member on the HBO sequence, the Los Angeles Times experiences.
In a lawsuit McGarrigle filed Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, the previous manufacturing assistant claims that Pierce sexually assaulted him after a crew social gathering in February 2020. Per McGarrigle, he and Pierce have been in a Louisiana resort room when Pierce allegedly overpowered him and had intercourse with him regardless of McGarrigle screaming “no” and attempting to push him away.
In a press release to the Times, Pierce denied McGarrigle’s allegations, saying:
I can’t start to clarify how damage and disgusted I’m by these completely unfaithful allegations. They are personally offensive and perpetuate damaging stereotypes which can be dangerous not solely to me but additionally to my whole group… An exterior investigation into this embittered particular person’s claims beforehand concluded that they have been fully with out advantage. This latest submitting is nothing however an try to shake down each me and a well-regarded tv firm. No one needs to be fooled: It has no foundation in actual fact or in regulation, and it’ll not succeed. As a hardworking and outspoken drag entertainer for greater than a decade, I do know that I’m removed from alone in battling ignorance, bigotry and prejudice, all of which performed a task within the submitting of this grievance. That is why I’ll struggle this totally meritless lawsuit and never permit it to destroy me and people I like, or hurt the causes all of us stand for.
Buckingham Television, which produces We’re Here, additionally is known as within the lawsuit. A consultant for the present informed the Times, “Buckingham Television, the production company for We’re Here, received a complaint late summer 2021 regarding an incident that was alleged to have occurred in early 2020. Buckingham and HBO take the safety and well-being of personnel on our shows very seriously, and Buckingham immediately launched an investigation. The investigation concluded that there was insufficient evidence to support these allegations.”
TVLine has reached out to HBO for added remark.
In the swimsuit, McGarrigle reportedly says he didn’t report the alleged assault immediately as a result of he was afraid of dropping his job, and that Pierce allegedly sexually harassed him till McGarrigle stop in 2021. He went to the present’s creators together with his allegations in September 2021, and filed a report with the Ruston, La., Police Department in November 2022.
We’re Here stars Shangela and fellow former RuPaul’s Drag Race contestants Bob the Drag Queen and Eureka O’Hara as they go to small cities in America, “spreading love and connection through the art of drag,” per the present’s official logline. The sequence, whose third season aired in late 2022, has received a number of Emmys and GLAAD Media Awards.
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