You may have read any number of headlines this morning stating that America’s most beloved rap group, Migos, refused to perform alongside drag queens on Saturday Night Live last weekend, where they appeared with Katy Perry to do her single “Bon Appétit.” The claim was eminently plausible given that the Migos were recently embroiled in a controversy stemming from homophobic comments they made to Rolling Stone, in which they said that support for the recently out rapper iLoveMakonnen was “fucked up” and “not right.” But there are a few problems with the story.
The first is that the post that originally contained the allegations against Migos has been deleted. Before being picked up by music and other websites—starting it appears with Uproxx, and then spreading to music and gay interest blogs—the story originated on the website of World of Wonder, the production company behind Rupaul’s Drag Race, which is on its way to building a mini-empire of online drag content. But the link to the post about Migos returns a 404, and neither the site nor the company appear to have explained why the story was taken down. You can still read the three anonymous quotes—two from unnamed drag queens, another from an alleged SNL employee—claiming that Migos didn’t “feel comfortable” performing alongside drag queens on websites that have aggregated the story, but the original post has been retracted for whatever reason.
Another problem is that Migos very clearly did appear onstage flanked by drag queens, as you can see below:
Indeed, aggregations of the WOW post acknowledge this. Wrote Uproxx, for instance: “If you watch the performance, you’ll notice there are a couple queens at the table, sat very far away from Migos on the fringes.” This—”Migos did not sit next to the drag queens onstage”—is, of course, an altogether different claim than the headlines blaring that Migos refused to appear with drag queens altogether. If that is true, it was obviously smoothed over at some point along the way.
One of the queens who appeared in the “Bon Appétit” performance is Brita Filter, who you see on the left wearing pink and yellow. In an email, she seemed to reference a claim in the WOW post that the selection of queens included in the performance changed over a number of rehearsals, but said that there was “no drama” with Migos:
It was incredible performing with Katy Perry. She wanted to have all walks of life at the table. I was happy to represent all the drag queens. There was numerous changes throughout the rehearsal process. They chose to have only people of color at the table. There was no drama with Migos.
One queen who appeared in Perry’s performance of “Swish Swish” earlier in the night, and who asked that her name not be used, said that she had only heard the same rumors as everyone else but could not confirm them, and invited Migos out to “enjoy any of our shows.”
A representative for Katy Perry said in an email that “the story is false.” A representative for Migos did not respond to requests for comment, but told the Atlanta Journal Constitution that the story is “completely false and fabricated.” If we hear back from any of the other drag queens enlisted by Katy Perry, we’ll update this post.
