A woman took to social media after seeing a drag queen steal a wad of cash from her purse during a performance and refused to return it. Bryan Watkins, known by his stage name Shannel, has been accused of stealing “$500 to $700” from drag brunch at Señor Frog’s at the Treasure Island Hotel in Las Vegas.
Popular social media account Libs of TikTok shared the video on Twitter on Wednesday. “A drag queen allegedly stole money from this woman’s purse, who apparently thought it was a hoax until she realized she wouldn’t get her $ back. The venue offered to return the money if she deletes her series of TikTok videos about it because it’s ‘inciting violence.'”
A drag queen allegedly stole money from this woman’s purse, who apparently thought it was a joke at first until she realized she wouldn’t get her $ back.
The venue offered to return the money if she deletes her series of Tiktok videos about it because it “incites violence.” pic.twitter.com/0APdrqcGqr
— Libraries by TikTok (@libsoftiktok) August 17, 2022
The woman, who goes by the username @meggymomma, was visiting Las Vegas for a weekend birthday trip with friends and family and decided to attend drag brunch as part of her birthday celebration. Meggy believed the stunt was a stunt and that her money would be returned after the show, but when she confronted Watkins, he would not return the wad of money he had caught recording a video.
“I had about $1300 in it, and after checking, I had about $350, give or take, and I think he took about $5 to $700,” she said in a TikTok video Monday. Meggy says Watkins denied stealing more than “a dollar,” called her a “Karen,” and told her to leave the establishment.
Meggy then went to management and said they were dismissive: “They said they didn’t know if they were going to give us our money back.” She said she also called the police to file a complaint against Watkins. She then took to TikTok to share her experience and the videos immediately went viral.
On Tuesday night, Meggy shared an update from her email correspondence with Voss Events, who produce the drag brunch at Señor Frog’s. According to Meggy, Voss Events offered to refund her $700 on the condition that she remove her TikTok videos of the incident, which said she incited “violence and hatred” towards LGBT-identified people. “And then I was told that Shannel has to make a public statement, which I won’t like if I don’t take it down,” she added.
Watkins initially remained silent about the situation, but due to the media frenzy on Wednesday, he took to Instagram to issue a statement of his own. Watkins has a large following on social media due to his television appearances in the first season of Drag Race and later in the first season of RuPaul’s Drag Race: All-Stars. Out of drag costume and makeup, Watkins denied the amount of money that was taken and claimed to have received death threats since the original TikTok was posted.