RuPaul's Drag Race donates to charity amid Sherry Pie disqualification
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Warning: This post contains spoilers about Friday's RuPaul's Drag Race.
In the wake of season 12 contestant Sherry Pie's disqualification from the Emmy-winning reality competition series, RuPaul's Drag Race family has made a charitable donation to support mental health among LGBTQ youth.
VH1 and production company World of Wonder made the announcement via a title card that flashed on screen during the final moments of Friday night's episode after the New York City-based queen won the week's main challenge and an accompanying $5,000 tip—a new prize that will seemingly go to every challenge winner for the rest of the season.
VH1 RuPaul's Drag Race Credit: VH1
The title card's text indicated that, amid last week's developments, VH1 and World of Wonder matched Sherry's prize money with a $5,000 donation to The Trevor Project, a non-profit organization that supports anti-suicide initiatives for young LGBTQ people.
It further stressed that the episode was filmed in 2019, months before multiple men accused the 28-year-old contestant—whose birth name is Joey Gugliemelli—of posing as a female casting director named Allison Mossie. Through email, Gugliemelli said Mossie was hiring for roles in stage plays and television projects, and allegedly duped victims into sending him degrading and sexually explicit "audition" tapes. After Gugliemelli apologized for his behavior in a lengthy Facebook post, VH1 and World of Wonder disqualified him from the competition ahead of last Friday's episode and announced that he would not appear in the grand finale scheduled to be filmed later this year (this is not a spoiler, as all Drag Race contestants typically make an appearance on the final installment of their respective seasons).
Though Sherry won the most recent episode's challenge, her presence throughout the edition was noticeably muted, as she appeared in zero featured confessionals and had little screen time elsewhere.
VH1 previously indicated it would continue to air the rest of season 12 "out of respect for the hard work of the other queens."
"I want to start by saying how sorry I am that I caused such trauma and pain and how horribly embarrassed and disgusted I am with myself," Gugliemelli's apology read. "I know that the pain and hurt that I have caused will never go away and I know that what I did was wrong and truly cruel."
RuPaul's Drag Race season 12 continues next Friday at 8:00 p.m. on VH1.
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