Katy Perry has been accused by a drag queen of “begging” performers to work on her new music video for free.
Drag artist Vicky Vox slammed an initially unnamed “pop star” for asking female impersonators to star in a new music video for no pay but later identified the musician as Katy, 32.
“You know what f**k this…there’s a pop star begging drag queens to do a music video for two days with no pay, they (their) own costumes and all,” Vicky, a member of the drag queen pop group DWV, wrote on Twitter.
“It wasn’t until we all said NOPE… that they said maybe there might be some budget. But they’ll get back to us tomorrow? No, f**k this.”
Slamming the offer to appear in the video as insulting, Vicky added, “Drag queens should not have to beg you to value them. Not only is it insulting you asked them to value themselves as worthless…You were going to USE them for your gain. Then say maybe when they say their time is valuable … you say maybe … NO!”
Vicky also accused contestants on the reality TV show RuPaul’s Drag Race of taking up the offer to work for free.
The drag queen initially kept the subject of her rant secret, but on Wednesday identified the Roar singer as the individual concerned in a tweet accompanied by a cartoon mocking those who ask artists to work for free to receive “exposure”.
The female impersonator then continued to bombard Katy Perry with messages informing her of the problems with not paying artists properly for their work.
Katy Perry was accompanied by drag queens when she performed Swish Swish, a track from her new album Witness, on TV show Saturday Night Live (SNL) in May.
The rap group Migos, who also appeared with Katy on SNL to perform another track, were forced to deny they had refused to perform alongside the drag artists.
A spokesperson for their record company Capitol Music called the reports “completely false and fabricated”.
