RuPaul’s Drag Race alum Shangela (whose real name is Chantaize Darius Jeremy Pierce, and who is also known as D.J. Pierce) is facing another allegation of sexual assault in a new lawsuit. According to court docs obtained by Rolling Stone and People, accuser Eric Poff (who also makes adult films under the name Dakota Payne) has filed a civil lawsuit in New York’s Supreme Court to allege that Pierce assaulted him in 2017. At the time, Poff was working in Manhattan as a production assistant on the film Hurricane Bianca 2, which Pierce starred in. In the lawsuit, Poff recalls going to a bar with Pierce and blacking out after consuming one or two drinks that he believes were “spiked” with a drug. He alleges that he woke up in a “semi-conscious” state to find himself “being anally penetrated without consent” by an unknown man in a hotel room. According to the complaint, Pierce watched this happen before allegedly also anally penetrating Poff without consent.
Poff is the seventh person to level allegations of sexual assault against Pierce. The first was former We’re Here production assistant Daniel McGarrigle, who filed a civil lawsuit in May 2023 alleging that Pierce raped him after a wrap party in 2020. Deadline reported that the parties reached a settlement with undisclosed terms in February 2024, and the suit was permanently dismissed on March 13, 2024. Five people then accused Pierce of sexual assault in a Rolling Stone investigation published on March 18. Poff later shared his allegations against Pierce on social media. In a three-minute video posted on Instagram in September of that year, Poff claimed to have recently confronted Pierce at a restaurant over his allegations and those in the Rolling Stone piece. “I let him know, ‘Hey, I know what you did, and you know what you did, and I believe all those boys’ stories,’” Poff said, alleging that Pierce looked him in the eyes and replied, “I’m sorry you feel that way.”
Pierce’s lawyer did not immediately respond to Vulture’s request for comment on Poff’s lawsuit, but Pierce has vehemently denied the previous sexual-assault allegations against him. He called McGarrigle’s claims “totally untrue,” noting in a statement at the time, “They are personally offensive and perpetuate damaging stereotypes that are harmful not only to me but also to my entire community.” (We’re Here’s production company, which was named as a co-defendant in McGarrigle’s suit, said in a statement that it had launched an investigation into a 2021 complaint and concluded that there was “insufficient evidence to support these allegations.”) In response to the Rolling Stone report, Pierce’s lawyer denied the allegations as “false and unsupported by any evidence or reliable witness testimony” and added that Pierce “adamantly denies ever engaging in nonconsensual sex.”