Lawmaker Settles With Drag Queens, to the Tune of $200K

A New Hampshire state lawmaker is about to be out $200,000 after a defamation settlement with two drag queens was reached. In a suit filed in April 2022 by Robert Champion and Michael McMahon, the two said that GOP Rep. David Love of Derry had accused Champion of being a sex offender, and McMahon of "rubbing butts" with kids during a 2021 drag story hour, per the Manchester Ink Link. In a confidential court settlement last week, however, Love has now agreed to retract his previous statements, and to pay $100,000 each to Champion, a gay dad and artist who performs as Monique Toosoon, and McMahon, a gay artist who performs under the stage name Clara Divine.

In a statement, Love now says he made those allegations, including in front of his state's Legislature and at a Derry Council meeting, after being "provided with inaccurate information, information that I failed to verify." Per the Washington Post, Love started making his defamatory statements in February 2022 as he tried to introduce a bill to mandate that people applying to work or volunteer at libraries undergo background checks. Champion, who isn't on any sex offender registries, said people started protesting him after Love's remarks, and that he also started receiving death threats afterward. He says he never previously faced such accusations.

Love, for his part, had told reporters in the past that he'd seen an article about Champion's sex offender status, though he couldn't recall where he'd seen it. Now, he's apologizing to the two performers. "My emotions got the better of me and I made these mistakes," he says in a statement, per NBC Boston. McMahon says he hopes their suit serves as a "message" to others not to throw such allegations around without proof and asserts, "We as drag queens ... need to stand up for ourselves." Champion, meanwhile, hopes to get voters motivated to get Love kicked out of the state's House of Representatives. "We plan on sticking with our guns until this election is over, trying to do everything we can to make sure he doesn't get reelected," he says, per the Post. (More drag queens stories.)