Note: This story contains details of an alleged sexual assault.
A former production assistant on HBO’s We’re Here has filed a lawsuit against co-host Darius Jeremy Pierce, better known as Shangela, alleging that the Drag Race star sexually assaulted him in February 2020.
As reported in the Los Angeles Times, Daniel McGarrigle filed suit in Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday, alleging that Pierce raped him after a crew party during We’re Here’s first season. The lawsuit names both Pierce and We’re Here production company Buckingham Television in its charges of sexual assault and harassment, false imprisonment, and violation of the Ralph Act, a California law that bars hate violence against protected groups.
In the lawsuit and his subsequent interview with the L.A. Times, McGarrigle alleged that Pierce pushed him to drink heavily at the party, then took him back to his hotel room and suggested he lie down. When McGarrigle, then working as Pierce’s assistant and driver, woke up, he said that Pierce had poured poppers onto his face and was attempting to penetrate him.
“I tried to fight him off, but I was weak and he was stronger than me, and he held me down,” McGarrigle told the Times. The suit alleges that Pierce told McGarrigle, “I know you want it, and you’re going to take it” during the attack.
In a statement to media, Pierce said he was “hurt and disgusted” by McGarrigle’s “totally untrue” allegations. “They are personally offensive and perpetuate damaging stereotypes that are harmful not only to me but also to my entire community,” Pierce wrote. “An external investigation into this embittered individual’s claims previously concluded that they were completely without merit. This newest filing is nothing but an attempt to shake down both me and a well-regarded television company. No one should be fooled: It has no basis in fact or in law, and it will not succeed.
“As a hardworking and outspoken drag entertainer for more than a decade,” Pierce continued, “I know that I am far from alone in battling ignorance, bigotry and prejudice, all of which played a role in the filing of this complaint. That is why I will fight this entirely meritless lawsuit and not allow it to destroy me and those I love, or harm the causes we all stand for.”
A separate statement from Buckingham Television gave more details about the investigation Pierce referenced, similarly denying the accusations held any merit. “Buckingham Television, the production company for We’re Here, received a complaint late summer 2021 regarding an incident that was alleged to have occurred in early 2020,” the company said. “Buckingham and HBO take the safety and well-being of personnel on our shows very seriously, and Buckingham immediately launched an investigation. The investigation concluded that there was insufficient evidence to support these allegations.”
Speaking to the Times, McGarrigle said that he reported the assault to We’re Here co-creators Steven Warren and Johnnie Ingram after leaving the show in 2021, waiting to do so because he was scared about losing his job and because he had allegedly been subjected to “daily” sexual harassment from Pierce since the assault. Later, he was contacted by investigators working for the studio, but that they made him feel “grilled,” he said, giving the impression that their job was “more self-serving […] than to help me.” McGarrigle then shared his allegations on Instagram in 2022, which he said sparked a deluge of harassment from Shangela fans, prompting him to remove the post after only 12 hours.
The Times also interviewed McGarrigle’s brother Ryan, who also worked on We’re Here at the time of the alleged assault as a production assistant, as well as two other production and crew members, all of whom confirmed to the paper that McGarrigle warned them about Pierce in 2021 following the beginning of work on the show’s second season. Ryan told the Times that his brother eventually opened up to him about the alleged assault after Ryan became Shangela’s day-to-day “wrangler” for season two.
Ryan also recalled McGarrigle returning to their shared hotel room the morning after the alleged assault. “He definitely was upset and he was crying and it was concerning,” Ryan remembered, noting that, at the time, McGarrigle said that he had spilled some poppers in his eyes.
McGarrigle said he did not come forward earlier in part because he did not want to detract from the positive impact We’re Here was making for LGBTQ+ communities.
“You always made my brother and me feel welcome and included,” McGarrigle reportedly wrote to Ingram in 2021. “You and that family is the only reason I would not take it upon myself to out DJ for what he did to me. Because it would hurt my family and a show that is making a difference in my own LGBTQIA+ community.”
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