Olympic DJ "Drag Queen Scene" Files Lawsuit After Mass Online Threats
French Last Supper DJ and LGBTQ+ activist Barbara Butch, who performed during a controversial scene at the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics that drew criticism from religious conservatives, has announced that she is taking legal action after being the target of an ‘extremely vicious campaign of cyber harassment and defamation,’ The Guardian reports.
‘The DJ ‘has received death, torture and rape threats, and has been the subject of numerous anti-Semitic, homophobic, sexist and defamatory slurs,’ her lawyer said in a post on her Instagram account.
In a letter posted on Butch's Instagram account, her lawyer wrote that the DJ ‘has received death, torture and rape threats and has been the subject of numerous anti-Semitic, homophobic, sexist and derogatory insults’.
Butch was part of a segment called ‘The Feast’, which began with a group of dancers and drag queens sitting in poses reminiscent of Leonardo da Vinci's ‘The Last Supper’ fresco depicting Jesus Christ and his disciples, which caused outrage among religious leaders and prominent cultural figures.
Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini called the scene ‘an insult to billions of Christians around the world’. Church groups also criticised the event. The French bishops' conference called it a “mockery of Christianity”, while a spokesman for the Russian Orthodox Church called it “cultural suicide”. The Bulgarian Orthodox Church said the event was ‘shameful, seductive and offensive to all of Christianity’.
Thomas Jolly, the artistic director of the ceremony, said the scene was not meant to be a reference to the painting, but to resemble a pagan festival ‘associated with the gods of Olympus’ and was not intended to offend Christianity.
‘You will never find in me a desire to mock or defame anyone,’ Jolly said.
Paris 2024 spokeswoman Anne Decamp offered a warm apology, saying: ‘If people have been offended by anything, we are of course very, very sorry.’
Source: x-com-Olympics