Drag queen Kabuki Bukkake spent 36 hours in jail over the weekend after being accused of “unwanted sexual contact” from a female patron that she brought up on the stage during a performance. The incident happened on Saturday, June 26th at the Dupont Circle Underground. Dupont Circle Underground held many events throughout the month to celebrate Pride, including drag shows on Saturday or Sunday night.
Bukkake told Metro Weekly,
“I brought someone on stage, and this is impromptu, right? It’s not like we had planned ahead. We couldn’t figure out how to get her on stage with me and twerk and that’s it. There was a lot of confusion in the moment. The adrenaline took over and I guess some of the actions I did on stage she did not find funny at all.”
Metro Weekly also reported, “that the woman’s outfit got caught on Bukkake’s outfit, and one of the “spaghetti straps” on her tank top ripped, although her breasts were not exposed. According to people watching the show, Bukkake was twerking and fell on top of the woman, and in trying to get up, grabbed her neck, appearing — from the crowd’s view — to be simulating oral sex.”
The show continued on, the woman seemed fine, but at the end of the show, the police showed up. The woman had called them alleging Bukkake with “unwanted sexual conduct.”
Bukkake said when discussing the indicent,
“The police were very understanding and actually as baffled as I was, that it had gotten to that point. But because of their job, they had to go through with the whole process. I can’t speak on what the other person told the police officers on site, but she was not willing to speak to Dupont Circle Underground. She was not willing to talk to me. She just wanted me to be seen in handcuffs and put away. That’s what I was told by the detectives.”
The police were left with no other option but to arrest her and take her to booking and then ultimately to jail, where she would have to stay. ALL WEEKEND LONG. Bukkake had to this say about the experience,
“I spent 38 hours in jail. I was in full drag, so I had to take everything off. And drag queens will know, none of our bodies are real. It’s pads, it’s tights, it’s layers upon layers. I took all that off. I had to borrow sweatpants and a oversized T-shirt from someone, and couldn’t get my contacts out. So one of my contacts broke in the process. I didn’t even notice, because I was so overwhelmed with the adrenaline and emotion. I only noticed when I got to the jail cell. I’ve got an eye infection that I’m treating right now.
She continued,
I’d never been in jail, never been locked up. I didn’t know what I was walking into. The amount of anxiety of the unknown is overwhelming, being in there with people yelling, fighting with police officers, yelling at each other. I had to relive my own sexual trauma for 38 fucking hours. I even almost started to believe that I was a sexual predator or something.
Shi-Queeta Lee, prinicpal of VanHook productions said,
(we) were shocked to learn that the woman who had been brought on stage for the WAP number had called the cops. They were sitting on the front row of the show and throughout the course of the evening they were enjoying the show, clapping and dancing and singing along and everything.
Lee also told Metro Weekly,
She seemed happy-go-lucky with the friends she was with. And some of the managers from Dupont Circle Underground went over to speak with them. Then she was bawling, crying and saying that she was this and that. I don’t know what words transpired between the managers and her. And then she was fine and dandy. She was eating gummy bears or whatever [snack] they were eating with her friend. And then more police came and then she’s boo-hooing and crying and all that stuff all over again. And around 1:45 a.m., the cop says, ‘Unfortunately, we’re just doing our job. We do understand and we know what goes on and what happens in a drag show. And we really don’t want to arrest him, but we have to do our job, it’s protocol.’”
While Bukkake has put the incident behind her she is worried if it will affect her future noting,
I work in a nonprofit 12-step recovery clubhouse, so having these charges against me doesn’t make me look good. I’m also a dog walker. I take care of people’s dogs part time, and there are some people who trust me with their dogs, which are their babies, and their possessions, the keys to their house, their cars. The consequences go beyond just wanting to see me punished for whatever she claims I did. If I walk into an employer and they say, ‘Have you ever been arrested?’ I have to let them know I’ve been arrested for sexual assault. That is not something that I, as an employer, would look at and say, ‘Okay, this is the person I want working with us.’”
She is also worried that this incident might affect how she performs in the future,
“For us to go into a drag show, to feel like it’s not a safe place, seems so ridiculous to me. Moving forward, am I going to tone down what I do in my act? Probably…. I have to be mindful of what I’m doing on stage. And if you’ve ever been on stage, you have five minutes to get five hundred people to clap and be entertained and sometimes the adrenaline takes over. There’s no rules in drag, but maybe moving forward, I don’t want the patrons to come to drag show and feel like they can’t sit in the front because they might be hurt, they might be sexually assaulted. That’s not the message that any in any drag show or any promoter wants to give,”
“A queer life was disrupted.”
A drag queen named Kabuki Bukkake pulled a straight woman on stage during a performance of WAP and proceeded to force the woman to simulate oral sex. The woman called the police.
But it was the “queer space” that was “disrupted.” https://t.co/AevGCtl4Zf
— Chad Felix Greene 🇮🇱 (@chadfelixg) July 2, 2021
Kubbake ended the interview saying,
“I’ve been going to drag shows since I was 18 years old, when I could go to the clubs and watch them. It’s always been about a sense of community, a sense of safety. No one is judging me. I’m finally a place where I can be accepted, and we can have fun and rejoice and be proud of who we are and what we are,” she adds. But maybe, moving forward there have to be rules as to what the drag queens can and cannot do. Maybe that is what needs to happen. I don’t know. I really don’t.”
Sources: Metro Weekly
