D.J. Pierce, a well-known drag queen under the name Shangela, who competed three times on RuPaul’s Drag Race, played a character in A Star Is Born, and was a cast member of the drag makeover show We’re Here for three seasons, is accused of sexual assault by multiple people in a new report by Rolling Stone published March 18. Five people claim Pierce assaulted them with four saying they were assaulted after Pierce got them drunk. The fifth accuses Pierce of attempting anal sex with him in a bathroom closet after he refused Pierce. Through his lawyer, Pierce denied the allegations to Rolling Stone. The five accusers all said they were worried about coming forward because of anti-drag and anti-queer legislation but did so out of hope that Pierce will be held accountable. Below, a breakdown of new and old allegations.
What are the allegations?
RayLee Soliz, then 20, is the first accuser chronologically, alleging that in 2012 they woke up to Pierce putting his penis in their mouth after Pierce invited them over following a meet and greet.
A man known only as “Zachary,” who was then 23, shared a similar story, claiming Pierce got him drunk, and he woke up to an additional man trying to have anal sex with him while he was still deeply intoxicated. Zein Checri was 18 when he was allegedly assaulted in London in 2017. He also alleges Pierce got him drunk before going back to Pierce’s hotel room. “I just remember very clearly a sequence of events, which was me being on the bed,” Checri says. “Then being sick on the bed, everywhere … And then, whilst that was happening, like, an attempt at penetration.”
One accuser, named only as “Helmer” in the report, says he went out for the night with Pierce in 2017 after meeting at a bar. Helmer, who was then 20, says he remembers drinking a mojito that Pierce ordered for him, but doesn’t remember anything else until the next morning, when he woke up in Pierce’s home. Pierce told him they had a threesome with “another guy involved that you brought in,” according to a police report Rolling Stone reviewed. Helmer is the only accuser who filed a police report at the time of Pierce’s alleged assault. The rest say they did not because as queer people, and in multiple cases as nonwhite people, they didn’t trust the police.
Edgar Ramirez was 21 at the time and was allegedly assaulted by Pierce in 2018 at an apartment. In an ATRL blog post he made at the time, Ramirez describes how Pierce “shoved me on the floor in a closet and tried to penetrate me.” “I’m very confident I was clear with my ‘nos,’” Ramirez told Rolling Stone. “I was declining advances.”
What about We’re Here?
This follows the settlement of a separate case filed by production assistant Daniel McGarrigle accusing Pierce of rape on the set of We’re Here. McGarrigle first filed the case last May, alleging that Pierce got him drunk and attempted to have anal sex with him. The lawsuit was originally reported in the Los Angeles Times. The case was settled in February 2024, according to Deadline.
On July 12, shortly after McGarrigle’s lawsuit was filed, the cast for the upcoming fourth season of the show was replaced by Priyanka, Sasha Velour, and Jaida Essence Hall with Pierce (along with his former co-stars Eureka and Bob the Drag Queen) no longer participating. Latrice Royale was added to the cast on September 6. It is unclear if the lawsuit affected that decision.
Has Pierce responded?
Through his lawyer Andrew Brettler, Pierce told Rolling Stone that the allegations are all “false and unsupported by any evidence or reliable witness testimony.” Brettler also said that Pierce “adamantly denies ever engaging in nonconsensual sex.”
Brettler responded to all of the claims individually within the Rolling Stone piece. He claimed that Pierce had consensual sex with Helmer and Zachary, and that Checri consensually came to Pierce’s room but that the two only cuddled. Regarding Ramirez’s claims, Brettler provided three witnesses who were there on the night of the party who say the two were never alone together.
Pierce does not even remember meeting Soliz, Brettler claims, though he doesn’t deny meeting them. (Soliz showed Rolling Stone a photo of a note signed by Pierce from the morning after the alleged assault, reading, “Good morning — didn’t want to wake you. Keep in touch!”) Brettler does deny, however, that Pierce sexually assaulted them.
