The Hollywood Reporter's Chris Gardner is in hot water online after posting a misleading tweet during last night's Primetime Emmy Awards.
Gardner posted a video clip he filmed just after the announcement of the Emmy for Outstanding Reality Competition Program, which RuPaul's Drag Race had won five of the past years in a row.
This year, however, the long-running drag program lost to Peacock's The Traitors reality competition series. Afterward, Gardner posted his clip which showed the Drag Race team and several drag queens leaving the theater.
Gardner caption his video:
"After five wins, 'RuPaul’s Drag Race' loses for best reality competition to 'The Traitors.'"
"After the category was announced the team from 'Drag Race' (including all the queens) cleared out and headed to the lobby. #Emmys"
Intentionally or not, Gardner's tweet gives the impression that the Drag Race team walked out of the show in protest, instead of what actually happened—it was a commercial break, when stars frequently mingle, get drinks, and use the restroom.
Understandably, people from the Drag Race universe were very unhappy with Gardner's seeming attempt to stir up drama.
Several of them showed up in Gardner's comments to set him straight, including drag queen Plane Jane, who took him to task for what she called "pseudo-journalism."
Queen Amanda Tori Meating was similarly pointed.
Others criticized Gardner for what they saw as an obviously calculated play to drum up backlash toward an LGBTQ+ show and its team at a time when queer people and drag queens in particular are constantly targeted by right-wing agitators.
It's worth noting that as a paying member of X, Gardner is eligible for the app's monetization program, which pays on the basis of engagement.
Posting purposefully incendiary and frequently dishonest content for precisely this purpose has become rampant on the platform since owner Elon Musk's takeover.
For a seasoned journalist of an internationally renowned outlet for entertainment news to stoop to such depths for a dollar—at a time of such danger for LGBTQ+ people—is indeed worthy of criticism.
Whether that was an intentional move by Gardner, who himself is gay, is unknown—the journalist hasn't addressed the controversy, except to update his tweet later to confirm that the Drag Race team returned to their seats moments later.
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