Olympic Drag Artist Nicky Doll Hits Back at Online Hate Mob

After the Summer Olympics’ opening ceremony, resistance creator Nicky Doll felt she was connected a cloud. Her constitution had survived 45 minutes of torrential rainfall arsenic she performed connected a span implicit the Seine River and she’d conscionable witnessed waacking and voguing, some creation forms with queer roots, scope a worldwide assemblage of billions of people.

Back successful the dressing room, which was connected a boat, the temper was celebratory. “We were each truthful arrogant that successful 2024, we were fixed the level to be,” says Doll, known for her quality connected the world amusement RuPaul’s Drag Race and arsenic the big of Drag Race France.

It wasn’t until the adjacent time that Doll realized she was besides astatine the halfway of an Olympic-sized backlash. French Catholic bishops decried the ceremony’s “derision and mockery of Christianity.” Donald Trump called the amusement “a disgrace.” Critics focused their choler connected 1 scene, wherever Doll posed alongside different Drag Race artists, interpreting it arsenic a parody of the Last Supper, a coating by Leonardo da Vinci and an important representation successful Christian iconography. Organizers denied that was the inspiration. But by then, it didn’t matter. The online mob had its momentum.

On Doll’s phone, that momentum took the signifier of a slew of notifications. Her sanction was getting tagged. Personal attacks were filing into her DMs. Then came the threats: “we cognize wherever you live,” “we person guns,” “we volition chopped your throat.” Other performers were getting harassed, too. A peculiar constabulary portion dedicated to warring hatred crimes was tasked with investigating online maltreatment targeted astatine lesbian activistic DJ Barbara Butch, the Paris prosecutor's bureau told the Associated Press.

“As queer people, we are utilized to being criticized connected societal media,” says Doll, who is from Marseille but present lives successful New York. “But erstwhile we saw they were utilizing religion … successful bid to onslaught us, this felt similar a debased stroke that we didn't spot coming.”

Behind the messages were the accustomed assemblage of anonymous trolls, hiding down accounts with nary names oregon illustration pictures. But among them was besides Laurence Fox, a British histrion turned right-wing commentator, who has go notorious for making misogynistic and homophobic comments. On the nighttime of the opening ceremony, amid the backlash, Fox posted a video of the catwalk country connected X, calling the formed “little pedos.” The station remains disposable connected the level with a fact-check statement that says: “There is nary grounds that immoderate of the radical successful the photograph are pedophiles.”

In response, Doll, who features successful the video adjacent to Butch, decided to writer Fox for defamation successful France. “I privation to writer him personally, due to the fact that I privation him to recognize that helium cannot proceed to usage america for his idiosyncratic docket and his words matter,” she says, “The connection that helium sends to his instrumentality basal matters. He's an enabler for hatred and homophobia and transphobia.” Representatives for Fox and X did not reply to WIRED's requests for comment.