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‘Drag Race’ star disqualified for ‘catfishing’ scam

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Sherry Vine, aka Joey Gugliemelli (Image via Facebook)

A contestant on “RuPaul’s Drag Race” has been disqualified for “cat-fishing” a number of young actors online.

Sherry Pie (whose non-drag name is Joey Gugliemelli) was exposed earlier this week on Facebook by an aspiring performer, Ben Shimkus, who posted what he called “a weird story” about the competitor on the popular reality show’s current season. Several other young male actors came forward soon afterward with similar tales, with Gugliemelli issuing an apology on Thursday.

Today, according to BuzzFeed, a spokesperson for VH1 and production company World of Wonder said in a statement:

“In light of recent developments and Sherry Pie’s statement, Sherry Pie has been disqualified from RuPaul’s Drag Race. Out of respect for the hard work of the other queens, VH1 will air the season as planned. Sherry will not appear in the grand finale scheduled to be filmed later this spring.”

Shimkus had shared that he had been contacted by someone named Allison Mossey, who claimed to be interested in working with him and asked him to submit videos.

“I had to film scenes that felt particularly sexual and awkward, but the opportunity seemed too good to let the overt sexual nature or my inhibitions get in the way,” the young actor shared. “I simply told myself that my parents wouldn’t be allowed to see the show, but I wanted the professional experience and the bright and shiny object on my resume.”

After an email exchange lasting three weeks, Shimkus revealed, he “grew wearisome of the back and forth that seemed to be going nowhere” and, after checking with an organization with which “Mossey” had claimed to be associated, discovered that he had actually been corresponding with Gugliemelli.

Following Shimkus’ post, several other young male actors came forward to BuzzFeed News with similar stories about the “Drag Race” star. Each of them claimed they had been approached online by Gugliemelli, who had posed as a casting director in order to get them to send audition tapes of themselves saying and doing embarrassing, sometimes overtly sexual things – with one 23-year-old actor, Josh Lillyman, even claiming he had been pressured to masturbate on camera.

The young performer said, “I did everything he asked me to because at that point he had built up so much detail for the show that I was truly convinced it was real and associated with HBO. It took a lot for me to break that delusion. I was willingly doing all the things he was asking me to.”

On Thursday, Gugliemelli came forward on Facebook himself, issuing an apology for his behavior:

“This is Joey, 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. 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. Until being on RuPaul’s Drag Race, I never really understood how much my mental health and taking care of things meant. I learned on that show how important “loving yourself” is and I don’t think I have ever loved myself. I have been seeking help and receiving treatment since coming back to NYC. I truly apologize to everyone I have hurt with my actions. I also want to say how sorry I am to my sisters of season 12 and honestly the whole network and production company. All I can do is change the behavior and that starts with me and doing that work.”

Response to the apology was harshly critical, with one commenter calling out Gugliemelli by saying, “only sorry because you got caught. this is sexual harrassment, you disgusting pig.”

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Calendar

Calendar: July 11-17

LGBTQ events in the days to come

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Friday, July 11

“Center Aging Friday tea Time” will be at 2 p.m. in person at the DC Center for the LGBT Community’s new location at 1827 Wiltberger St., N.W. This is a social hour for older LGBTQ+ adults. Guests are encouraged to bring a beverage of choice. For more details, email [email protected]

Women in Their Twenties and Thirties will be at 8 p.m. on Zoom. This is a social discussion group for queer women in the Washington, D.C. area and a great way to make new friends and meet other queer women in a fun and friendly setting. For more details, visit the DC Center’s website

Go Gay DC will host “LGBTQ+ Happy Hour” at 7 p.m. at Firefly. This event is ideal for making new friends, professional networking, idea-sharing, and community building. This event is free and more details are available on Eventbrite

Saturday, July 12

Go Gay DC will host “Family Fun Story Time” at 12 p.m. at Freddie’s Beach Bar & Restaurant. Join award-winning drag queen Tara Hoot for songs, stories, bubbles, puppets and dancing. It’s the feel-good event you didn’t know you needed. This event is perfect for kids and kids at heart. Attendance is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.

Miss Capital Pride will host “DC Drag brunch on Rooftop – Penthouse” at 12 p.m. at MXDC Cocina Mexicana. Guests will experience a Mexican brunch infused with Baby Shank’s signature dishes, complemented by delicious margaritas and mimosas, all within the beautiful and spacious atmosphere of MXDC. There will also be outstanding performances by glamorous drag queens and celebrated celebrity impersonators, featuring Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Britney Spears, Nicki Minaj, Ariana Grande, Whitney Houston, Cher, and many more. Tickets cost $30.65 and are available on Eventbrite

Sunday, July 13

The National Portrait Gallery will host “Stormé at Stonewall” at 1:30 p.m. This is a gallery talk with LJ Roberts and Charlotte Ickes. This exhibition is a light-box portrait of activist Stormé DeLarverie, who is said to have thrown the first brick at Stonewall—the uprising credited with launching the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement in 1969. Roberts created this unconventional portrait in response to DeLarverie’s absence in mainstream narratives about the history of the Stonewall rebellion. Attendance is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.

Monday, July 14

“Center Aging Monday Coffee Klatch” will be at 10 a.m. on Zoom. This is a social hour for older LGBTQ+ adults. Guests are encouraged to bring a beverage of choice. For more details, email [email protected]

Genderqueer DC will be at 7 p.m. in person at the DC Center for the LGBT Community. This is a support group for people who identify outside of the gender binary, whether you’re bigender, agender, genderfluid, or just know that you’re not 100% cis. For more details, visit genderqueerdc.org or Facebook

Tuesday, July 15

Center Bi+ Roundtable will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This is an opportunity for people to gather in order to discuss issues related to bisexuality or as bi individuals in a private setting.Visit Facebook or Meetup for more information.

Wednesday, July 16

Job Club will be at 6 p.m. on Zoom. This is a weekly job support program to help job entrants and seekers, including the long-term unemployed, improve self-confidence, motivation, resilience and productivity for effective job searches and networking — allowing participants to move away from being merely “applicants” toward being “candidates.” For more information, email [email protected] or visit thedccenter.org/careers.

Thursday, July 17

The DC Center’s Fresh Produce Program will be held all day at the DC Center for the LGBT Community. People will be informed on Wednesday at 5 p.m. if they are picked to receive a produce box. No proof of residency or income is required. For more information, email [email protected] or call 202-682-2245. 

Virtual Yoga with Charles M. will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This is a free weekly class focusing on yoga, breath work, and meditation. For more details, visit the DC Center for the LGBT Community’s website.

Lit Lovers: Book Club for Seniors will be at 2 p.m. on Zoom. The book selection for July is “Rubyfruit Jungle” by Rita Mae Brown. For more details, visit the DC Center’s website

Poly Discussion Group will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This is an inclusive, welcoming, virtual safer space to talk about all things polyamorous — the rapturous, the confused, the pure YIKES, we want to hear them all. For more details, email [email protected]

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Television

ICYMI: ‘Overcompensating’ a surprisingly sweet queer treat

A sweet, savvy show about breaking free to embrace your true self

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Holmes, Benito Skinner and Wally Baram in ‘Overcompensating.’ (Photo courtesy of MGM Amazon)

Pride month 2025 is now behind us, and while it’s safe to say that this year’s celebrations had a darker edge than usual, it’s also true that they came with a particularly rich bounty of new queer movies and shows to entertain us – so many, in fact, that even if we are facing a lull until the fall another harvest of fresh content, there are still plenty of titles – which, for whatever reason, were off your radar – for you to catch up on in the meantime.

One of the most notable of these –  the bingeworthy series “Overcompensating” (now streaming on Amazon Prime) – will most definitely have been ON the radar for the plentiful fans of creator and star Benito Skinner, the actor/comedian who rose to viral fame through his content on platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. For anyone else, it might have easily slipped through the cracks.

Created and written by Skinner as a loosely autobiographical “college comedy,” it aims for the kind of raucous, explicitly sexed-up tone one expects from the genre as it centers on Benny (Skinner), newly arrived as a freshman at prestigious Yates University. A former football jock and “golden boy” at his midwestern high school, he’s the picture of idealized youthful masculinity; he’s also deep in the closet, struggling to keep his sexuality hidden and maintain his macho front under the intense scrutiny of the college’s social scene – and under the resentful eye of his older sister Grace (Mary Beth Barone), who has already secured her own place at the top of the pecking order.

In the first episode, Benny’s difficulties are eased when he meets Carmen (Wally Baram), another freshman trying to navigate the politics of college life; a gamer from a home marred by tragedy, she’s an outsider who feels like she’s putting on an act, too, and they click – giving him the convenient “cover” of female companionship while providing them both with much-needed support and encouragement. He’s also befriended by a handsome film major from England (Rish Shah), who has already caught his eye, stirring other kinds of feelings and possibly even reciprocating them. Meanwhile, he’s being courted by the school’s “exclusive secret society” – headed by his sister’s aggressively “alpha” boyfriend Pete (Adam DiMarco) – and trying to stay interested in his studies, despite a growing realization that a career in business doesn’t actually appeal to him all that much.

That’s a lot to juggle for anybody, even an overachiever like Benny – whose “lucky” life so far has largely been the result of playing a role he is finding harder and harder to maintain. As the series goes on through its eight-episode arc, it becomes clear that he’s not the only one who is “keeping up appearances,” and he, along with the other confused and damaged young people in his orbit, begins the painful (but often hilarious) process of evolution that is required in order to become truly oneself.

Directed toward appealing to a younger demographic, “Overcompensating” is the kind of show that requires a few episodes worth of invested time to make an impression that feels like substance. Full of the bawdy farcical antics that go hand in hand with stories about hormonally charged college kids, it’s not above leaning into the formulas and tropes that have always driven these kinds of comedies. At first, while its broadly comedic strokes and frequently explicit sexual hijinks might elicit plenty of chuckles, the show might easily feel tiresome for more mature audiences; there’s a nostalgic fun to it, made even more appealing, somehow, by the “political incorrectness” of its frequently sexist and homophobic humor, but for a while things may feel like an unnecessary attempt to reinvent “Animal House” for the Gen Z crowd.

By the time the season reaches its halfway point, however, things have started to get real. The antics of these horny almost-adults take on a more pointed absurdity, informed by the increasingly tangled web of defensive deceit they weave among themselves – and, as things draw toward a cliffhanger climax, the consequences of maintaining it – until it achieves a sense of empathy toward them all. There’s a wisdom that smacks of lived authenticity underlying the whole affair, transforming it from the “sexploitative” teen comedy of its surface into something deeper. To be sure, things stay expectedly wacky, and the soap-operatic melodrama of its twists and reversals continue to maintain the show’s “mature YA” appeal; but beneath those trappings, by the end of the season a truer identity has begun to emerge, just as its characters have begun to find their own levels of self-actualization for themselves.

As creator, primary writer, and star, it’s obviously Skinner who deserves much of the credit. While it might be tempting, early on, to dismiss the show as an “ego project,” the internet-spawned sensation proves his talents quickly enough to get past such judgy suspicions, delivering a pitch-perfect blend of sauciness and sensitivity that extends its appeal toward both ends of the taste spectrum; just as crucially, he brings the same aforementioned “lived authenticity” to his winning performance – after all, he’s essentially playing himself in a fictionalized version of his own life – while also making sure that equal time (and compassion) is afforded all the other characters around him, each of whom are pushing at the boundaries of their own respective “closets,” too. It’s unavoidable to notice that – like most of his co-stars – he’s plainly a decade too old to be playing a college student; but by the time we reach that crucial halfway turning point, we’ve become too engaged by him to care.

The show is full of excellent performances, in fact. Relative newcomers Baram and Barone offer layers of complex nuance, while the more familiar DiMarco (“White Lotus”) is close to heartbreaking as the toxic BMOC clinging to the illusion of power as his life begins unraveling around him. Other standouts include the mononymic actress Holmes as Carmen’s “wild child” roommate, solidly likable turns as Benny’s parents from mature veterans Connie Britten and Kyle MacLachlan (whose presence, along with stylish elements in several key scenes, hints at an homage-ish nod to the late David Lynch), and podcaster Owen Thiele as an openly gay fellow student who has Benny “clocked” from the moment they meet. Finally, Lukas Gage makes a deep impression as a former high school teammate at the heart of Benny’s most haunting memory.

There’s no official word yet on whether “Overcompensating” will be renewed for a second season, despite the multiple loose ends left dangling at the end of its first; it has proven to be popular, and Skinner’s large fanbase makes it likely that the story will continue. Even if it doesn’t, the place of uncertainty in which it has left its characters rings true enough to serve as a satisfying endpoint.

As for us, we hope that won’t happen. For all its sophomoric humor, generic plot twists, and purposefully gratuitous sexual titillation, it’s one of the sweetest, kindest, and most savvy shows we’ve seen about breaking free from conformity to embrace your true self – and that’s a message that applies whether you’re queer, straight, or anywhere in between.

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Photos

PHOTOS: Independence Day Weekend in Rehoboth

Wicked Green Pool Party, fireworks among festivities

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A fireworks show was held in Rehoboth Beach, Del. on Saturday, July 5. (Washington Blade photo by Daniel Truitt)

Vacationers and residents alike enjoyed Independence Day Weekend activities in Rehoboth Beach, Del. The Wicked Green Pool Party drew hundreds to the CAMP Rehoboth fundraiser on Saturday. That evening, revelers went to the rooftops to watch the fireworks display.

(Washington Blade photos by Daniel Truitt)

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