A Canada’s Drag Race winner has claimed to have been “abducted” by police in Mexico.
In a series of posts on Instagram stories on Sunday (20 April), Venus Sherwood alleged she had been abused by officers in the city of Puerto Vallarta.
According to Entertainment Weekly, Venus, who won the fourth season of Canada’s Drag Race, said she was “abducted… handcuffed and tossed around in the back of a truck hatchback”.
She claimed to have been “choked and kicked for an hour,” and that the police “took $1,000 (£750) cash and my headphones [from me] and I had to pay them hundreds more dollars to get released”, adding: “I can’t even call the police because they’re the ones who did this.”
The EW article included screenshots of the posts, showing Venus revealing injuries to her arm and torso.
“Anyone have any advice on what to do and/or where to report this,” Venus asked in her posts. “Front desk won’t help me because they think I’m guilty of not paying for my taxi which makes no sense because that’s why I took out cash in the first place… corruption on every level.”
The performer also shared an image of a building, with the comment: “They left me here, bleeding on the side of a dark road in the middle of the night after being handcuffed for hours while they all laughed at me.
“I’m still in shock and not sure what to do. I’m bruised and very sore. I can’t even comprehend the [past] five hours, I’m just lucky to be alive.”
She later posted that she had received help from staff at the Almar Resort, where she was presumably staying, and thanked “the amazing queer community in Puerto Vallarta”.
Venus became the first Indigenous queen to win Canada’s Drag Race, when she nabbed the crown last year.
Fellow Drag Race contestant Jasmine Kennedy was “harassed” on a train in New York earlier this month, while in 2023, Drag Race Holland‘s Envy Peru was assaulted in Amsterdam. The Vivienne, who died in January, was attacked in Liverpool the following year.
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