Canada's Drag Race Judge Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman Deletes Twitter Account

This past weekend Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman, one judges for the first season of Canada’s Drag Race, deactivated his Twitter account.

The move comes after Bowyer-Chapman was widely criticized for his critiques on the show. I have personally taken issue with his and Brooke Lynn Hytes‘ critiques, but my thoughts are that as first season judges, they can learn from their mistakes and improve as judges.

Fans of the show have not taken kindly to Bowyer-Chapman’s case to his critiques that exude a certain mean-spiritedness. There is even an online petition to have him removed as a judge.

I think in Bowyer-Chapman’s case is that while he is involved in the entertainment industry, in order to properly critique you first have to have the wealth of knowledge on the subject and you have to know how to give constructive criticism.

RuPaul’s Drag Race UK star Crystal, who appeared on the sixth episode of the season, tweeted her support of Jeffrey and bashed the fans who criticized him saying, “So the black queer judge on Canada’s Drag Race gets bullied off twitter. Ya’ll happy?”

The main arguments I’ve seen are accusations of “inauthenticity” (as if YOU know what’s authentic for him), and bad critiques (but none of the other judges are getting that half as hard).
— Crystal | Black Lives Matter (@crystalwillseeu) August 23, 2020

Honestly- search his name and just look at the endless endless nasty tweets. It’s so depressing. Are you contributing to this?

Wild idea, but maybe put that energy into someone who’s actually done something … bad?
— Crystal | Black Lives Matter (@crystalwillseeu) August 23, 2020

crystal (and lemon, I see you retweeted this), I respect you both SO much, and yes, black-queer representation is so important. but jeffrey was just being an absolute bully. humiliating contestants for the whole world to see. body shaming, making them cry, etc,.
— jonah (@fuckjonahh) August 23, 2020

Lemon, who is a cast member this season, also came to Jeffrey’s defense.

how many conversations have you had with him?? you don’t really think you know him from 20 min of judge time on a television show?? delusion
— lemon (@thatbitchlemon) August 23, 2020

Lemon spoke to Gay Times following her elimination about the amount of hate that is spewed on social media.

“If you like someone, amazing. You should tell them that you love them. And if you aren’t a big fan of someone, that’s also totally fine, it’s your opinion,” she explained. “You’re welcome to hate or dislike whatever queen, but you don’t need to share it with them. You don’t need to tag them in that post. You don’t need to post it to your Twitter feed.”

“Text your friend about it if you have to get it off your chest. At the end of the day, we’re all people – even though we look like circus clowns sometimes – and we are affected by these comments. Pay attention to what you say online.”