Randy Rainbow, a comedian and performer known for musical theater parodies critical of President Donald Trump, is under fire after numerous old tweets featuring racial stereotypes and slurs referencing transgender people surfaced.
Rainbow, who is openly gay, hasn’t tweeted this week beyond promoting his most recent tune in celebration of Joe Biden’s vice presidential running mate pick, Sen. Kamala Harris.
The tweets in question appear to be deleted but outlets like LGBTQ Nation and Queerty have screen shots of the posts, which include jokes about Mexicans demonstrating “laziness” and stealing phones and a “large Black man” character who sells crystal meth. Other tweets shared by the outlets repeatedly use slurs to describe transgender people.
A representative for Rainbow told TheWrap a response is forthcoming: “Yes, we are addressing this!”
LGBTQ Nation reports that a spreadsheet of the tweets went around Twitter. Social media users who quote tweeted some of the old posts to preserve them are now left with broken links as the tweets have been deleted.
Numerous people have called on Rainbow to apologize over the past three days, but there has so far been no response.
Rainbow’s most recent tweet came Wednesday, when he thanked comedian Sandra Bernhard for supporting his latest parody video.