US Republican House Representative George Santos has been accused of dressing as a drag queen while growing up in Brazil.
The openly gay congressman, who was born to parents of Brazilian descent, allegedly used the name “Kitara” when participating in beauty pageants in the 2000s, several media outlets have reported.
A Brazilian drag queen named Eula Rochard told media she met Santos “when he was around 16 or 17 years old” and that he used to hang around at her house.
Rochard has since shared a picture “taken in 2008 at the Pride Parade at Icarai Beach in Niteroi,” which supposedly shows her and Santos in drag.
“George had disappeared for a little while, and then returned to Brazil with a lot of money, and that was about the same time when the picture was taken,” Rochard said.
Santos himself has refuted these claims, branding them as “categorically false” on Twitter and insisting that he “will not be distracted nor fazed.”
Rochard, however, reportedly said that while Santos has “changed a lot,” he “was always a liar.”
Previously, Santos ended up catching flak over being caught making false claims about having degrees from New York University and Baruch College, as well as about having Jewish heritage and his grandparents fleeing from the Nazis during WWII. On both occasions, his party mates called for him to step down.