RuPaul’s Drag Race: Why Tamron Hall’s Sherry Pie Interview Was Wrong & Hurt Victims

The competition reality series RuPaul’s Drag Race is now on season 13, with no signs of slowing down. The show has had its fair share of iconic queens, including Alaska, Willam, Bob The Drag Queen, and Trixie Mattel, along with some notorious cast members. After all, some drag queens are known for being lewd, crude, and combative. One of the most infamous drag queens to appear on the show was Sherry Pie, who was ultimately disqualified and edited out of some season 12 content.

Sherry Pie was disqualified for catfishing, which is the act of pretending to be someone other than yourself online, in order to get something from another person. Sherry would pose as a casting agent and trick unsuspecting men into sending pictures and videos of themselves in compromising positions. She would ultimately ghost them. After owning up to what she did, Sherry is trying to make a comeback and recently appeared on the Tamron Hall Show to do a controversial interview.

Tamron Hall welcomed Sherry Pie to her talk show to discuss catfishing and being accountable for one’s actions. The interview was an opportunity for Sherry to rebrand herself, and for Tamron to boost drama with a controversial guest. However, fans are now speaking out because they don’t believe that Hall should have given Sherry a platform. They think that allowing Sherry to be on the show is damaging to her victims, who were not invited to give their point of view.

Jackie Cox, a queen who was a contestant on Drag Race season 12, is speaking out. On Twitter, Jackie stated, “I am publicly calling on @TamronHallShow to reconsider giving Sherry Pie access to the platform of national television to tell their side of the story without first speaking with the victims of her abuses and allowing them to weigh in on their own trauma.” Jackie went on to discuss her conversations with the victims and went on to remind Sherry that “Being a performer and public persona is not a right, it is a privilege. Sherry relinquished this privilege by their actions.” This is a lesson that Nina Bo’nina Brown could learn as well.

The fact that Tamron Hall had no interest in discussing Sherry’s victims’ situations shows that all she cared about was ratings. This is insulting to the many victims of abuse by Sherry and others. Abuse survivors deserve to be heard and abusers do not. The decision to conduct the interview was misguided and wrong. Hopefully, audiences will now be able to enjoy RuPaul’s Drag Race season 13 without being reminded of her.

RuPaul’s Drag Race season 13 airs Fridays at 8 pm EST on VH1.

Sources: Jackie Cox/Twitter