LA drag queen and Dragula star Meatball performed a hilarious send-up of Rep. George Santos during a recent show. Performing in Sasha Velour’s monthly NYC drag show, NightGowns, Meatball surprised audiences with a spot-on impression of the representative’s drag persona, complete with a messy wig.
The performance began with a video montage of Santos’s many and bizarre lies, which have included false claims that he is Jewish, that his mother was killed in the 9/11 attacks, and that he was once on an episode of Hannah Montana.
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Meatball then emerged onto the stage dressed like Santos in a business suit, thick black glasses and stiletto heels. Lipsyncing to the song “This is Me” from the musical The Greatest Showman, Meatball removed items of clothing one at a time, eventually revealing a red sequined dress while the crowd roared.
The red dress is a reference to Kitara Ravache, Santos’s alleged drag persona. According to friends who knew him at the time, Santos would sometimes dress up as Kitara Ravache while he was living in Rio de Janeiro in the mid-2000s. He appeared in drag for the first Pride parade in Niteroi (nearby Rio de Janeiro) and competed in multiple drag beauty pageants, hoping to be crowned Miss Gay Rio de Janeiro.
NEW: I just spoke by phone with Eula Rochard, a Brazilian drag queen who was friends with George Santos when he lived near Rio. She said everyone knew him as Anthony (*never* George), or by his drag name, Kitara, and confirms this photo is from a 2008 drag show at Icaraí Beach. pic.twitter.com/1MeeDR1O2O
— Marisa Kabas (@MarisaKabas) January 18, 2023
One source described Kitara Ravache as a “poor” drag queen initially and said of Santos, “He’s changed a lot, but he was always a liar. He was always such a dreamer.”
Santos has denied claims that he ever appeared in drag, and he has already advanced anti-LGBTQ+ policies during his brief time in office. Shortly after becoming the first openly gay Republican in the House of Representatives, he co-sponsored a bill with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene that would introduce a federal ban LGBTQ+ books for children.
It’s not the first time that Santos has been dragged for his hypocrisy and lies. In a recent SNL sketch, Bowen Yang played a version of Santos who becomes an NFL correspondent thanks to a suspiciously impressive resume. He shows up again later in the skit as the “most gorgeous drag queen in Brazil,” Kitara Ravache.
While Santos has managed to stay out of the press in recent weeks, drag queens like Meatball are not letting him off the hook so easily. If anything, he should be flattered. It’s no Miss Gay Rio de Janeiro, but Meatball’s performance is the closest to excellence Kitara Ravache will ever get.
A serve. No notes https://t.co/f1DfcxWJ6v
— Dr Panti Bliss-Cabrera (@PantiBliss) February 27, 2023
Meatball appeared in the first season of The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula, coming in 4th place. She currently hosts the Sloppy Seconds podcast with rapper and comedian Little Dipper.
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