“I want to say how sorry I am to my sisters of season 12 and honestly the whole network and production company.”
Sherry Pie has been disqualified from RuPaul’s Drag Race season 12, just one day after BuzzFeed News reported allegations from five aspiring actors that they had been catfished by the performer posing as a casting director.
Joey Gugliemelli, better known by his drag persona Sherry Pie, solicited nude photos and videos from his former classmates at SUNY Cortland in New York as well as actors he worked with in a theatre company in Nebraska.
After the allegations went public on Thursday (5 March), Sherry released the following statement on social media:
This is Joey, I want to start by saying how sorry I am that I caused such trauma and pain and how horribly embarrassed and disgusted I am with myself. I know that the pain and hurt that I have caused will never go away and I know that what I did was wrong and truly cruel. Until being on RuPaul’s Drag Race, I never really understood how much my mental health and taking care of things meant. I learned on that show how important “loving yourself” is and I don’t think I have ever loved myself. I have been seeking help and receiving treatment since coming back to NYC. I truly apologize to everyone I have hurt with my actions. I also want to say how sorry I am to my sisters of season 12 and honestly the whole network and production company. All I can do is change the behavior and that starts with me and doing that work.“
Today, VH1 and World of Wonder announced in a statement to Entertainment Weekly that “in light of recent developments and Sherry Pie’s statement, Sherry Pie has been disqualified from RuPaul’s Drag Race.”
They then explained that the season will air as planned “out of respect for the hard work of the other queens” and said Sherry will not be invited to the grand finale, which will be filmed later this year.
Sherry is only the second queen in Drag Race herstory to be disqualified from the series after Willam.
She will make her debut on tonight’s episode alongside Aiden Zhane, Dahlia Sin, Jaida Essence Hall, Jan and Rock M. Sakura.
For this week’s maxi-challenge, the queens will write and perform a Fosse-inspired jazz number. Here’s hoping the queens will lip sync to one of Robyn’s iconic bops – we have our fingers crossed for Call Your Girlfriend.
The first episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race season 12 is now available to stream on Netflix UK.
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