Liverpool drag star The Vivienne has urged fans to “keep using their voice” after she was attacked in a branch of McDonald’s.
The first-ever winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK was subjected to a homophobic attack in the Edge Lane branch of the fast food chain earlier this month. A man was then arrested on suspicion of s47 assault and spent time in custody.
Now, just shy of two weeks after the incident, The Vivienne posted an update to her 165,000 TikTok followers.
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The renowned Cher impersonator, who can be seen standing on a stage addressing a crowd, said: “I was stood in a McDonald’s the other day, and I stood there out of drag minding my own business and ordered a burger.
“I got punched straight in the face for being who I am. And I thought, there were two ways I could deal with this, I could stand here and take it and forget it or I could make an example out of this absolute ****.
“So within five minutes, I had the owner of the company that he worked for there at McDonald’s, I had the police there and he lost his job and was arrested.
“I’ve been in that kind of situation enough to be able to take it on the chin - quite literally - but I thought about what happens next time when a 16-year-old queer youth who can’t handle themselves is traumatised for life.
“I thought he wasn’t going to get away with it, it is time we all use our voices and make an example of these idiots.
“We are living in a horrible world at the minute but as a community, we get through these things. We got through the AIDS epidemic, we have got through Stone Wall, we’ve got through every single thing that has been thrown at us as an amazing community so thank you. Keep using your voice.”
Merseyside Police condemned the attack at the time with detective inspector Alan Nuttall claiming “there is no place for hate crimes in our city and Merseyside Police has a zero-tolerance approach to these incidents.”
On Friday, June 16, The Vivienne took to Twitter to share details of her nightmare ordeal.
The 31-year-old Dancing on Ice star wrote: “Just been attacked in McDonald’s, police on way. Homophobia is alive and well folks. First time I’ve never retaliated in a fight because I’m not gonna punch somebody in front of kids and women."
She later added: “Huge thank you to the fantastic staff at @McDonaldsUK Edge Lane who acted fast and removed the idiot from the premises and did everything in their power to make sure I was ok and waited for police with me."
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