The owners of a Pittsburgh gay bar began receiving death threats after a drag performer appeared in blackface during an ill-fated tribute to late actor Tim Curry.
Blue Moon Bar, which bills itself as “the Friendliest Gay Bar in Pittsburgh,” canceled several performances after photos from a Sept. 23 event circulated online, showing a drag artist wearing makeup widely condemned as racist blackface.
According to reports, the performer was attempting to portray Hexxus, the villain from the 1992 animated film “FernGully: The Last Rainforest.” Curry provided the character’s voice.
The act triggered an immediate backlash after images spread across social media. Critics said the performer’s dark makeup closely resembled blackface—an offensive practice the bar should have prevented.
Fellow drag performer Pinapple Honeydew criticized the appearance in an Instagram post, writing, “How this person was even allowed to step on stage wearing this is beyond me.”
“This is actual disgusting, racist behavior being given a stage to perform and no one thinking twice about it,” Honeydew added.
Honeydew also called the performance an inappropriate way to honor Curry, an LGBTQ+ icon who died in August.
“What happened to just wearing a black outfit,” the performer wrote. “Out of all of Tim Curry’s iconic characters, you HAD to do this one??”
“And you HAD to do blackface in order to portray a character no one was going to recognize anyway???” the drag artist continued. “F–king insane.”
Nearly a week after the event, Blue Moon Bar issued an apology on Facebook. “We were just made aware yesterday that this happened last week,” management wrote on Sept. 29.
Bar officials said they were not present during the performance and that two guest hosts, who do not typically oversee the venue’s open stage, had run the event. Management said it was “horrified” and “blindsided” by what occurred.
The statement said the guest hosts “somehow didn’t realize at the time what was happening,” while emphasizing that the bar was not excusing their conduct.
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“Whatever the intent, blackface is racist and harmful and it is never acceptable. We are sorry that it happened in our bar,” management said.
The bar also apologized to anyone offended or triggered by photos of the performance, as well as to those who witnessed it in person.
Blue Moon later canceled its open stage on Sept. 30, saying it and that evening’s host had received too many death threats to safely proceed. “We do not feel comfortable putting on the show this evening,” the bar said in a Facebook post.
Management also posted a warning outside the performer’s dressing room: “Absolutely NO Preformances Based on Race, Ethicity, or Nationality (that is not your own) Will Be TOLERATED!!!”
The unidentified performer told QBurgh that an attempt to accurately recreate the character’s appearance “caused an egregious error that resulted in harm to a community I love and care for.”
The drag artist said they “want to be held accountable” and intended to make amends, apologizing “for the harm caused to the community, the hosts, and the patrons.”
“Intent does not matter when it comes to the effects of what’s been done,” the performer told the publication.
Blue Moon Bar management did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
It comes just weeks after an LGBT venue was at the center of another storm in a teacup, when Last Ditch, a lesbian bar in Greenfield, Massachusetts, briefly became the most notorious bar in America.
The struggling bar’s owners scrapped their longstanding COVID mask requirements for just one night in a week in an attempt to boost business, the Boston Globe reported.
But the move brought out extreme reactions among some members of the local LGBT community, with critics dramatically calling it a “mass disabling event” or even a “eugenicist” attack.
Another said they hoped the bar got “firebombed” for the crime of trying to keep the lights on.