Arts & Entertainment
Shirtless Violinist gays up ‘Beauty and the Beast’ with drag Belle
male ‘Bello’ takes on the romantic lead role
Matthew Olson, known as the Shirtless Violinist, is back again with a cover of the “Beauty and the Beast” theme song. This time his boyfriend Paul Castle, also the video’s director, joins him for a gay reimagining of the classic Disney tale.
In the video, Olson is seen performing in an empty room when he catches the attention of Bello (Castle). Bello hatches a plan to dress in drag as “Belle” to get the interest of Olson. After fleeing the room, Bello returns as himself in hopes that Olson will still have feelings for him. To his surprise, Olson is perfectly happy with Bello as himself.
“When I first had the idea to cover ‘Beauty and the Beast’, I wanted to keep the video fairly simple. I envisioned myself (transformed as the Beast) with a beautiful dancer floating around me in a ballroom,” Olson writes in the video description. “No frills, no story, just a pretty song and some sweeping camera movements. But when the “gay controversy” erupted over the new live action version of the film, it sparked another idea: What if, instead of a ballroom dancer, I asked a drag queen to perform with me?”
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