February 26, 2019 - 8:31 AM
TORONTO - The first Canadian competitor to be featured on "RuPaul's Drag Race" is owning up to a controversial photo in which the performer appears alongside another drag queen who is in blackface.
Brooke Lynn Hytes says posting the image to Instagram in 2013 was a mistake.
"It recently came to my attention that an old photo of me with another drag queen who is in blackface surfaced," Hytes says in a message posted Monday to the Instagram account @bhytes.
"This post was irresponsible on my part; it was rooted in ignorance and came from a place of naivety and privilege."
A poster on Reddit complained about the photo late last week, eliciting a flurry of online condemnations.
Hytes is the drag queen persona of Etobicoke, Ont.-raised performer Brock Hayhoe.
The new season of "RuPaul's Drag Race" is set to premiere Feb. 28 on OutTV. The winner gets US$100,000.
News from © The Canadian Press, 2019