THE RuPaul’s Drag Race competitor who was disqualified from the program by a overfishing scheme apologized in a live interview on Tamron Hall show on Tuesday.
Joey Gugliemelli, better known as Sherry Pie, did not deny the allegations of his victims, of which the talk show host said there are now “about a dozen”.
“First, I want to say that there are no allegations,” said Gugliemelli in the interview. “I admit my mistakes and, besides mistakes, horrible behavior”.
According to five men who spoke to BuzzFeed News in March 2020, Gugliemelli pretended to be a casting agent named Allison Mossie in order to trick aspiring actors into sending sexually degrading “test videos” of themselves, including one in which a victim masturbated on camera.
Just before the story was published, Gugliemelli apologized for his actions in a Facebook post. The following day, VH1 announced that he had been disqualified from Drag Race12th season.
In Tuesday’s interview, Gugliemelli again apologized, saying, “I can’t even begin to imagine the pain and trauma I caused.” He said he had contacted and spoken to three of his victims, noting that one of them asked not to be contacted again.
He said he had consulted with several therapists in the past year. He was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, but said, “I don’t blame my mental illness for anything I did,” according to TVLine.
In announcing the interview, Tamron Hall was widely criticized for having Gugliemelli on the show, with many denouncing the presenter for giving him a platform to soften his image.
One of the victims, Ben Shimkus, tweeted that he had spoken to the producers of the Hall show: “I … told them that I and the 20 victims I spoke to today do NOT want them to show a segment with Sherry Pie”, but that they decided to go ahead with this anyway.
Jackie Cox, other Drag Race competitor of the 12th season, tweeted that the Tamron Hall The program should “reconsider giving Sherry Pie access to the national television platform to tell her side of the story without first talking to the victims of her abuse and allowing them to assess her own trauma.”
“Being an artist and a public person is not a right, it is a privilege,” tweeted Cox. “Sherry has relinquished that privilege for his actions. Giving Sherry a spotlight without the forethought of reaching victims is irresponsible, immoral and wrong. I am with the victims of Sherry’s actions. “
Hall addressed criticism before Gugliemelli’s interview, saying the interview was not an effort to absolve him of his mistakes.
“It’s not about revealing your platform – it’s called an interview, and people who do bad things are interviewed. R. Kelly comes to mind, “said Hall.
Hall also added that the interview would be broadcast live and that Gugliemelli would not be allowed to use it as an opportunity to publicize anything he could profit from, such as a book or podcast.
“We believe in the men who published about Sherry Pie,” said Hall. “We believe in being fair and we don’t offer free passes.”