Colman Domingo has hit back at trolls taking issue with his drag performance in Sabrina Carpenter’s Tears music video.
Inspired by The Rocky Horror Picture Show, the Bardia Zeinali-directed promo sees Carpenter stumble into a surrealiest mansion after a car crash, where she’s greeted by Domingo in full Dr. Frank-N-Furter-inspired drag, with the 55-year-old Euphoria actor donning cherry-red lingerie, a towering wig and full drag makeup.
While fans praised the video’s theatrical flair and queer celebration, one critic on X took aim at Domingo’s drag appearance, calling it “bull****” and questioning why such a “manly” gay actor would be cast in drag. Domingo didn’t hesitate to clap back, responding: “It’s a character. Like all the characters I play. Calm down brother.
“Enjoy the video and the fun that it possesses. Dance it out! It ain’t that deep.”
He then quoted drag icon RuPaul: “We are born naked and everything else is drag. Suits, t-shirts, dresses. All drag.”
As for Carpenter, she called the shoot for the track from her latest album Man’s Best Friend “a wild fantasy dream come true.”
Domingo’s appearance in Tears comes amid a career high, following back-to-back Oscar nominations for Rustin and Sing Sing.
Carpenter’s album rollout has been met with a backlash, prompting her to warn any “pearl-clutchers” to avoid listening to the songs.
The album’s cover of her kneeling on all fours with her hair being dragged by a man was also met with outrage, with the charity Glasgow Women’s Aid accusing her of using “tired tropes that reduce women to pets”.
They wrote: “Oh Sabrina!
“Sabrina Carpenter’s new album cover isn’t edgy, it’s regressive.
“Picturing herself on all fours, with a man pulling her hair and calling it ‘Man’s Best Friend’ isn’t subversion. It’s a throwback to tired tropes that reduce women to pets, props, and possessions and promote an element of violence and control.”
Carpenter subsequently released an alternative cover of her holding onto a man, which she quipped was “approved by God”, and responded to the criticism.
Recently, she told CBS Mornings host Gayle King: “Y’all need to get out more, I think.
“Between me and my friends and my family and the people that I always share my music and my art with first, it just wasn’t even a conversation… It was just, like, it’s perfect for what the album is, and what it represents.”