Sherry Pie · Zodiac · GSK
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the true crime that's worth your time
Viewers of RuPaul’s Drag Race are watching the prelude to a true-crime drama play out before their eyes. The reality competition show kicked off its 12th season on February 28, but less than a week later, BuzzFeed reported that one of this season’s contenders was allegedly behind an elaborate scheme involving impersonation, fraud, and sexual coercion.
Joey Gugliemelli, whose drag name is Sherry Pie, allegedly pretended to be a casting agent named Allison Mossey (spellings of the name vary from report to report) who contacted men and asked them to submit audition tapes for various projects, in some cases using her “assistant” (Gugliemelli) to film them in sexual situations, ostensibly for the role, NBC News reports.
The news broke just a day before the show’s first episode with Gugliemelli aired, and the show prefaced the episode with a title card that read, “In light of recent developments and Sherry Pie’s statement, Sherry Pie has been disqualified from RuPaul’s Drag Race. Out of respect for the hard work of the other queens, VH1 will air the season as planned. Sherry will not appear in the grand finale scheduled to be filmed later this spring."