Dusty Ray Bottoms: ‘I was raped by a stranger in a bathroom when I was 12’

Dusty Ray Bottoms was raped in a shopping centre bathroom when she was 12.

The RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant has opened up about the traumatic incident when she was just a child that left her fearing for her and her family’s safety, and admitted she never told her family because she didn’t want to “disappoint them”.

Speaking exclusively to Attitude in this month’s July issue, she said: “I had a traumatic incident when I was 12, and there was a police report written about it.

“I was at a [shopping centre] with my mum and dad and I went to the bathroom by myself.

“A man grabbed my leg and pulled me under the stall – he raped me.

“I got away but before that he told me that if I told anyone [about it] he’d kill me and my family. I was so young that I believed him.

“I was scared. I got out of the bathroom, my dad obviously saw something was wrong so he ran, kicking down the stall doors to go after whoever was there.

“The guy gets out and runs to the parking lot, the cops come, they grab the guy. They put me in this small dressing room, sitting right in front of the guy and have me look at him face-to-face, and they said, ‘Did this man touch you?’

“I said, ‘No’. I was scared – it was just the craziest situation – and they let him go.

“By the time I was old enough to know that he couldn’t hurt me and my family, I didn’t want to tell my family because I did not want to hurt them and I did not want to disappoint them.”

In the same issue, the drag queen revealed how later in life she voluntarily went to a gay exorcism by the request of her religious parents because she “wanted to be happy and fixed”.

Read Dusty’s full interview in Attitude’s new July issue, which also comes with a two covers featuring Adam Lambert and Sense8 star Miguel Angel Silvestre. Buy now and take advantage of our best-ever subscription offers: 3 issues for £3 in print, 13 issues for £19.99 to download to any device.