Republican lawmaker must pay $200,000 to two drag queens after ‘completely false’ claims

A Republican politician has agreed to pay two drag queens six-figure sums after he falsely accused them of having inappropriate relationships with children.

After a two-year legal battle, David Love, who represents the Rockingham 13 district in the New Hampshire House of Representatives, has settled with Robert Champion and Michael McMahon, agreeing to pay each of them $100,000 (approximately £75,000) and admitting that his comments were “completely false”.

Love made the original comments in February 2022 while introducing House Bill 1529, which sought to mandate that library employees and volunteers must obtain criminal background checks.

His concerns surrounded drag queens taking part in story time events. At an event in Nashua in 2019, he called Champion a “convicted sex offender”, and at a meeting in Derry in 2021, accused McMahon of “rubbing butts” with children and “just really going way too far”.

Champion and McMahon sued for defamation.

As part of the settlement, Love was required to post a statement on social media.

“After being provided with inaccurate information, information that I failed to verify, I publicly accused Robert Champion… and Michael McMahon,” Love wrote. “I have since learned that those assertions were completely false.

“I wish to publicly retract those statements and apologise to Robert and Michael. I have agreed to monetary judgment against me for $100,000 for Robert and Michael each.”

Following the settlement, Champion, who performs under the name Monique Toosoon, told The Washington Post: “When you say things that are that damaging or harmful about someone, they’re not going to just sit there and let it happen.”

Speaking to local media, McMahon, whose drag name is Clara Divine, said: “I don’t want people to look at something online about me that’s untrue and believe it, then not cast me for further story times or the children’s activities stuff, because I really like to educate the younger generation on what drag is.

“I just want this to stand as a message for other people to not do this sort of thing, to not lie.”

This is not the first time conservative figures have been sued for defamation.

In April, right-wing pundit Laurence Fox was ordered to pay £90,000 each to RuPaul’s Drag Race UK star Crystal and former Stonewall trustee Simon Blake after he called them paedophiles in social media post in 2020.

At an earlier hearing, high court judge Mrs Justice Collins Rice ruled Fox’s words “harmful, defamatory and baseless” after the Reclaim Party founder unsuccessfully tried to counter sue the pair for calling him a racist.

“By calling Mr Blake and Mr Seymour paedophiles, Mr Fox subjected them to a wholly undeserved public ordeal,” the judge said. “It was a gross, groundless and indefensible libel, with distressing and harmful real-world consequences for them.”

“They are entitled by law to an award of money, to compensate them for those damaging effects, and to ensure that they can put this matter behind them, vindicated and confident that no one can sensibly doubt their blamelessness of that disgusting slur and that they were seriously wronged by it.”

Fox is now involved in another libel case, this time with Drag Race France host Nicky Doll, after he called her and a troupe of fellow drag artists “deviant little pedos” following their appearance at the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics.

The latest case prompted Crystal to joke that the former Lewis star is “a modern-day patron of the arts. He actually loves supporting drag”.