A major scandal overshadowed season 12 of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Allegations against the drag queen Sherry Pie were exposed and confirmed the week of the premiere of the popular drag competition show.
One day after the news broke that Sherry Pie had catfished five men over a period of several months, TV executives announced that Sherry would be disqualified from the competition and would not appear in the show’s reunion or grand finale. After that statement was made, the editors began cutting her out of several parts of the show.
According to Buzzfeed News, Sherry Pie, also known as Joey Gugliemelli, posed as a casting director called Alison Mossie. Gugliemelli told his victims that his persona worked for Playwrights Horizons. He deceived men from his alma mater, SUNY Cortland, and a theatre company in Nebraska by asking them to audition for a professional play contract that did not actually exist. One of the men says he masturbated on camera for Gugliemelli. One of the actors said this in his statement on Facebook, “Allison and I went through an email thread that lasted over 150 emails in about three weeks. We covered topics of pay, living situations in the city, when I would have to leave school for rehearsals, and conversations about acting choices for the character. I had to film scenes that felt particularly sexual and awkward.”
Daniel Marandola explains on a Jakeyonce YouTube video that he was friends with Sherry Pie for years and built a trusting relationship with him. Then, after a series of several conversations and manipulation tactics, Sherry Pie convinced him to use steroids to get further in the process of auditioning for producers who worked for HBO. Marandola said he trusted Sherry Pie and had worked with her as a queen on several occasions. Sherry Pie built up the lie about Alison Mossie for months. She made this actor feel like his inability to go forward with the steroid use was a burden to her and her relationship with this important casting director. Marandola said that after many face-to-face meetings with Sherry Pie and convincing arguments that he was going to blow a huge opportunity, he eventually gave in and started taking the steroids and gained 23 pounds.
In the Jakeyonce YouTube video, Marandola addresses the question about why he did not ask to meet with producers after so many back and forth conversations with Sherry Pie. Marandola says he did ask to meet with production, but that Sherry Pie blamed the #MeToo movement for the secretive way he had to comply with Mossie. Sherry Pie told Marandola that production wanted to find someone willing to do the steroid use, but that it had to remain a secret and if he wanted the role he needed to comply or this opportunity was going to be blown. According to Reddit, “casting” paid Marandola for the steroids and to be on hold for the project. He gave up returning to school for the following semester because he was so convinced this opportunity was real.
The 12th season of the Drag Race was filled with the most talented queens the show has seen in years and the ratings reflected that. Unfortunately, this scandal put a dark cloud over the entire season.
