Bianca Del Rio defends her jokes against Blair St Clair | Photo: Bianca Del Rio, Facebook
Bianca Del Rio has hit back after a rape joke she told at a show caused a massive fan backlash.
The RuPaul’s Drag Race season 6 winner performed a stand up set at Montreal Pride on Thursday 16 August, where she discussed the latest season of the show. During the set, she mocked Blair St Clair after she spoke about being raped in college.
However, the drag star didn’t apologize. Instead, she doubled down, posting a quote from an article onto her Instagram.
‘Look, my point was everyone was crying on the last season of Drag Race to win over the judges and “save yourself from elimination”. I wasn’t questioning the validity of anyone’s personal struggles, but bringing it up right before you “lip sync for your life” was strategic… in my opinion.’ She told Hornet.
‘Back in the day when a man in a wig had to “lip sync for their life”, they relied on a wig reveal, rose petals or picking up their opponent and twirling them around. Maybe I’m just nostalgic for the old days when drag was fun, not personal.’
The original joke that sparked the controversy occurred at Montreal Pride, where spoke about Queens crying on stage: ‘… then you’ve got that other bitch “I was raped!”
‘No – fuck you. You notice she wasn’t raped until she was in the bottom two? Think about that, bitch – that’s fucking strategy.’
Both Montreal Pride and Blair St Clair spoke out about the jokes.
Backlash against Bianca Del Rio
Pride wrote on Facebook: ‘The Montreal Pride Festival would like to severely disassociate itself from certain remarks made during the Drag Superstars show on Thursday, August 16th, 2018.
‘The approach of certain sensitive themes, present in the form of so-called jokes, in no way reflects the policies of our organization and we apologize to anyone who has experienced discomfort due to these events.
‘We will take the necessary steps to ensure that such situations do not happen again.’
Posting on Twitter on 18 August, Blair St Clair called out Bianca on contributing to rape culture.
‘In the U.S. someone is sexually assaulted every 2 minutes, but people persist in thinking that making rape or sexual assault jokes is “comedy”.
‘It is not. Rape jokes contribute to rape culture’.
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