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‘Are there gay clubs in Gaza?’ Drag queen blasts LGBTQ+ Israel haters
Tiffaney Wells said that people who waved the rainbow flag at anti-Israel events “didn’t know what they were doing”
July 8, 2021 10:40
Tiffaney Wells said that people who waved the rainbow flag at anti-Israel events “didn’t know what they were doing”
July 8, 2021 10:40A professional British drag singer has criticised parts of the LGBTQ+ movement over anti-Israel bias.
Tiffaney Wells, born Paul Jeremy Myers, said that people who waved the rainbow flag at anti-Israel events prompted by the last Israel-Gaza war “didn’t know what they were doing”.
She made the comments as Tel Aviv Gay Pride celebrations took place in Israel last week.
“When I saw rainbow flags against Israel, I was really angry,” Ms Wells, who is Jewish, said. “I was really upset with parts of the LGBT community.
“In so many other Middle Eastern countries, they will throw you off a building if you are gay.
“If you are gay and live in the Gaza Strip, where are you going to go? Are there any gay clubs there?”
She added: “The Holocaust could happen again if we didn’t have Israel.”
Ms Wells, who has been performing since the 1980s, said she has always confronted people who have made antisemitic comments.
“I have experienced antisemitism, like we all have. Of course I call them out on it. I don’t f*** about, dear.” The entertainment industry changed as a result of the pandemic. But she has performed in people’s gardens across north-west London as restrictions have started to lift. Wearing a Star of David necklace, matching earrings and a sequined outfit, she uses Yiddish and performs an “Israeli-Jewish medley”.
In the 2000s she placed an advert in the JC to promote her act, she added. “The advert went in 20 years ago and I had no response. Since then, I have done so many Jewish hen parties. I call them Jew-dos.”
Ms Wells, who now lives in Kent, said: “My work is the only connection I have with the Jewish community now.” Born in 1964 to a Jewish family in Edgware, she said she had a “regular” Jewish background.
“We went to Edgware Reform synagogue and I went to Hebrew school,” she recalled.
“My mother would light the candles every Friday. Every Saturday, we would go to my grandma”.
Ms Wells, a Barbra Streisand fanatic, said that performing as a male singer was “never right”.
When she was 21, a fellow performer loaned her a wig. A drag queen was born. “I first started performing as ‘Yetta Rose’,” she said.
“I was performing in Southend and I just thought: ‘I am not Paul anymore, I’m Yetta. I can do what I like, no one can see me.’
“All my nerves went. When I was performing as a boy, my legs would shake and I would close my eyes.”
Eight years later, she adopted the stage name Tiffaney Wells, after “one of the original Charlie’s Angels”.
“That was the end of Yetta Rose. She’s off living on a kibbutz somewhere now,” Ms Wells added.