Drag Race winner Icesis Couture speaks after wrongful blackface accusations: ‘You’ve broken me’
Icesis Couture. (WOW)
Canada’s Drag Race season two winner, Icesis Couture, has defended herself against accusations of blackface which have “broken” her and forced her to quit Twitter.
She posted two lengthy statements to social media on Wednesday, (16 November), with one featuring an image of her as a child – to prove her ethnicity.
It follows the drag queen, who’s of Salvadoran and French Canadian descent, being wrongly swamped with blackface accusations online.
In the statement Couture wrote “leave me alone”, adding “I gave you what you asked for and it’s still not enough”.
She said “social media is sick” and revealed how ever since being announced as a contestant on Canada’s Drag Race Versus the World she has been “attacked daily”.
“I am a damaged, quiet, introverted person who has lived on this earth for 35 years before you ever met me.”
“I’m sorry but I don’t owe any of you anything”, Couture wrote, before she shared that she has been through “hell and back” her “entire life”.
After her initial statement failed to prevent nasty comments, she concluded: “I will no longer be engaging here, I hope you all enjoy the new season, you have broken me I hope you’re happy”.
https://twitter.com/itsqueenicesis/status/1592723050159828992
The Drag Race star, whose offstage name is Steven Granados-Portelance, initially posted a statement to Twitter which questioned why it is acceptable for her to need to prove her ethnicity.
Icesis Couture revealed she has had to “dig up pictures from a time and of a man that almost beat me to death because I was too gay or not ‘Latino’ enough”.
https://twitter.com/itsqueenicesis/status/1592697603833352195
She said she is “persecuted from every side” when discussing who she is and said this has pushed her into vulnerable situations before.
“This drove me to attempt killing myself when I was younger. You choosing to rewrite my past to cancel my future does not and will not ever discredit me as a person of colour.
“I am proud of my culture and I will never apologize for it. Unless you are a Black person or of Afro-descent, this conversation is not for you. Stay in your lane and listen to Black people on Black matters!”
Icesis Couture apologised to any Black person affected by the situation and said her intention was never to “do anything to hurt the community”, adding that they “mean the world” to her.
“I’m saddened the world has come to persecuting poc [people of colour] because they don’t fit your ‘ideal image’ and you storm their doorsteps with fire and pitchforks demanding they prove their ethnicity, ‘or else’,” she wrote.
