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Some say James Davis, who performs as Elaine Lancaster, was fired, but he says he quit -- and he's now joining forces with Milo Yiannopoulos.
A Miami-area drag performer no longer has a gig emceeing a popular brunch event after posting racist and anti-Semitic comments on social media.
James Davis, who performs as Elaine Lancaster, made the inflammatory posts on Facebook and Twitter over the weekend, the Miami Herald reports.
Davis, in the Lancaster persona, posted on Facebook Saturday that Carmen Yulin Cruz, the mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico, would be "lucky to get a job at Amigos discount stores," according to the Herald. Cruz has been highly critical of Donald Trump's handling of hurricane relief in the U.S. territory. The post appears to have been taken down.
The same day, Lancaster shared a story on Twitter from a right-wing site called True Pundit, alleging that Facebook executives Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg "colluded" with Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. Lancaster included the hashtags #JewishCollusion and #FacebookFraudsters.
News broke Monday that Lancaster would no longer be hosting the Sunday Drag Bunch at Senor Frogs in Miami Beach and would be replaced by Tiffany Fantasia (Henry Williams). "I got the message: 'Do you want to do it or not?' And I said, 'OK,'" Williams told the Herald Monday night. "To my knowledge, it means Elaine is no longer in the show."
Danilo De La Torre, who performs at the brunch in the drag persona Adora, told the paper, "I guess [brunch promoter Brandon Voss] is over Elaine and all her junk stuff and all the negative things she is getting from people. It's too bad, really, that it has to come to this. People have the right to support whoever they want to. But she loved the attention no matter what and she's paying the price."
Davis, however, said he quit. "I quit Brandon yesterday, Sunday," he told the Herald. "I can come back any time I want to come back. There's a lot of hate that's been generated for him and is making him uncomfortable. I just got my inheritance. My mother is still alive, but I got it anyway. So I don't have to work another day if I don't want to."
Davis also said he has a new gig: touring, as Lancaster, with gay right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos. "It's a free-speech rally promoting Milo's free-speech book," Davis told the Herald. It's going to be a love fest. I'm going to tell my story, how I came into doing drag. First we're going to Orlando on Friday. The next one is in Australia. International destinations. The tour hasn't been laid out yet."
Yiannopoulos made a recent brief, impromptu appearance at the University of California, Berkeley, even though a conservative group canceled plans to hold a Free Speech Week there, saying the university was making it too difficult. Yiannopoulos drew a very small crowd.
Davis, like Yiannopoulos, is a Donald Trump supporter. In July, Davis appeared on CNN and said he's lost work because of his embrace of Trump. "I come from a community that touts that we are so inclusive, we are so embracing of what's different, all we ask for is tolerance and equality," he told the Herald after the CNN interview. "I make a living as a female impersonator in the state of Florida. I have hosted all the major events -- White Party for 19 years. When I came out as a supporter of Trump, I was blackballed instantly. They got online campaigns. I was thrown off the [White Party] committee. I couldn't be the emcee anymore. I got death threats. I have lawsuits pending against people. Oh, it's horrible."
He told the paper Monday, though, that he's happy to take a break from the South Florida LGBT community. "I would rather sit in a room with 10 people than sit in a room with these people," Lancaster said. "Everything the far left says they are has a string attached. If you don't get in lockstep, we're going to destroy you. We're going to get you fired from your job. We're going to look up your friends on social media and destroy them." He gave well wishes to Tiffany Fantasia, saying the performer is "not as articulate" and "not as intelligent ... on the microphone" as he is but "still has a little bit of charisma."
