Rep. George Santos (RN.Y.) appeared to reporters that he had dressed in drag but insisted that he had never been a drag queen.
“No, I’m not a drag queen in Brazil, man. I’m young and I’m having fun at a festival. Sue me for having a life,” Santos told reporters at New York’s LaGuardia Airport, according to CNN.
A Brazilian drag performer recently told reporters that Santos, who is gay, performed in Brazil as a drag queen named Kitara. He shared a picture of himself with another man called Santos at a parade in Rio de Janeiro.
At tweet last weekSantos said the suggestion he was a drag performer was “absolutely false.”
However, it appears Santos himself may have confirmed more than a decade ago that he performed in drag as a teenager in Brazil, Politico reported. According to a 2011 Wikipedia entry written by a user named Anthony Devolder — one of Santos’ aliases — Devolder began his “stage life at the age of 17. [a] DRAG QUEEN gay nightclub.”
The embattled lawmaker is the subject of several federal and local level investigations as the number of falsehoods about his background sold to voters continues to grow. He has admitted to lying about his work experience, heritage and education and is also under investigation for alleged campaign finance violations.
Although Republicans in Congress have done little to punish lawmakers for lying they told to get elected, her appearance as a drag queen could cause uproar within the party, whose members have targeted drag artists as part of an anti-LGBTQ hate campaign.
Reporters there also grilled Santos about his claim that his mother was in the south tower of the World Trade Center during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Records show that she was in Brazil at the time and that she died in 2016.
According to CNN, Santos ignored the question and scolded reporters for asking.