Drag Race star slams Daily Mail attempt to smear family performance as ‘thrusting’ and ‘suggestive’
Crystal from Drag Race UK uses an angle grinder at a show in Essex. (Credit: Twitter)
Drag Race UK star Crystal has criticised the Daily Mail after the newspaper attempted to smear a recent performance as “suggestive”.
The drag queen, who appeared on series one of Drag Race UK, quote tweeted sections of the Mail article, which suggested that parents were “horrified” by the performance which saw her in “fishnet tights” in front of an audience at a theme park in Essex.
A clip of her performance had been shared by anti-LGBTQ+ network Libs of TikTok.
An email from a Daily Mail reporter suggested just one parent, who had seen the clip online, had been “horrified” at the performance.
“Performing to the tune of Scissor Sisters’ hit ‘Filthy/Gorgeous’, Crystal makes thrusting motions with his hips and runs his hand up and down an angle grinder that he is using to make sparks fly from a metal plate fixed to his crotch,” the article read.
“Not the fishnet tights, won’t someone think of the children,” Crystal joked in response.
She added in a separate tweet that her performance, which included using an angle grinder on her crotch, had been similar to one shown on Britain’s Got Talent.
“Was it a ‘sex act in front of children’ when it was on BGT?” Crystal asked.
In an email response to the paper, which she also shared along with a request for comment by a reporter, she added that the performance had not been sexual in nature, and criticised the Mail for feeding into the “‘drag queen grooms children narrative”.
She pointed out: “My act is no different to what you might see on Britain’s Got Talent, from Lady Gaga on MTV, or from a street performer in Covent Garden.
“The fact that you are twisting my presence as being dangerous says a lot about the climate these young queer kids are having to grow up in, and how important Pride celebrations still are.”
Crystal made headlines last year after taking actor and failed London mayoral candidate Laurence Fox to court for defamation after he used Twitter to accuse her and others of being pedophiles.
In May 2022, Fox was ordered to pay £36,000 in legal fees following his accusations against Crystal, former Stonewall trustee Simon Blake, and Coronation Street actor Nicola Thorp, after they criticised him for accusing Sainsbury’s of “discrimination” for honouring Black History Month.
In a statement announcing her intention to sue in 2020, Crystal said: “I will not stand for racism when I see it, and I will not stand for homophobic defamation when it is directed at me.
“An accusation of pedophilia is one of the oldest homophobic tropes, and it was very shocking to have that levelled at me, not just by Laurence Fox, but also his many followers who believed him.
“I may have had to endure homophobic bullying as a child, but I will not tolerate it as an adult.”
