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Desmond & The Killer

Sicko parents of celebrated child drag queen allowed him to appear on convicted killer's YouTube show
Screen Shot 2018-12-18 at 7.51.47 PM

Earlier this week, I wrote about Desmond Napoles, an 11-year-old Brooklyn boy who, as a drag queen, goes by the name “Desmond Is Amazing.” In my blog post, I criticized his parents for allowing him to perform at a gay bar in Brooklyn, at which men threw cash at him, as if he were a stripper. This 11-year-old child has been widely celebrated in the media, including guest spots on Good Morning America and Today. The mainstream media have been entirely complicit in helping this child’s parents exploit him.

Now, I’ve found more. This story is even more disturbing.

Here is video of Desmond performing the same act (imitating Gwen Stefani) he did in Brooklyn at a gay bar in San Francisco this past October. Watch the clip; hooting and cheering men give him money as he prances around the stage.

How many other times has this happened? Does that stage mom, Wendy (sometimes Wendylou) Napoles, take her 11-year-old son to gay bars to perform for men all the time now? Where is Child Protective Services?

Unless something has changed fairly recently, Wendy is unemployed. Last Christmas, some friends did a Go Fund Me for her and the boy.  They raised just over $2,500 to get them through the holidays. In 2016, Wendy did an interview with “Bettina May,” a burlesque performer and “vintage” stylist, from whom Wendy took a class to learn “how to find the pin-up inside” herself. It sounds like Wendy is doing the classic stage mom thing: living out her own fantasies through her son.

If she was so broke as recently as one year ago that she had to turn to Go Fund Me, it seems fair and even necessary to ask: is her 11-year-old son Desmond her cash cow? The man who started the Go Fund Me for the family last year re-opened it on August 30 of this year, explaining:

I found that on a cached page. The account has been closed.

Why are these able-bodied people unemployed? Who paid for this expensively designed website? For Desmond’s lavish costumes?

To be fair, it does not at all appear that these parents are forcing the boy to do something he doesn’t want to do. But they are clearly exploiting him.

Here’s how sick it is. Does the name Michael Alig mean anything to you? He was briefly famous in the early 1990s as a New York “club kid.” His star flamed out when he murdered a guy. The Village Voice recalls:

A hammer was the weapon Robert “Freez” Riggs used to hit Angel Melendez over the head, incapacitating but not killing him. It was Alig, his fist wrapped in a sweatshirt, pummeling an unconscious Melendez over and over and over again, that actually finished him off.

The pair then lifted Melendez’s lifeless body into the bathtub of the luxury apartment paid for by Alig’s boss, club impresario Peter Gatien, and doused it in Drano, baking soda and a few liberal spritzes of Calvin Klein Eternity. They left it there for “eight or nine days” before chopping Melendez’s body into pieces, and throwing them into the Hudson.

Alig was convicted of manslaughter and sent to prison for 17 years. He was released in 2014. Macaulay Culkin played Alig in the 2003 feature film Party Monster.

Last December, Desmond appeared as the guest on a skeezy YouTube talk show Alig hosts with his former club kid roommate, Ernie Glam. The image that illustrates this post is a screenshot from the interview. Notice the painting above their heads; it features the word “Rohypnol,” which is a date rape drug. Wendy Napoles allowed her little boy to appear on a show hosted by a freak who spent 17 years in prison for killing a guy and chopping him up.

That Wendy is a piece of work. On her son’s Facebook page, dated December 10, 2017, she tore into critics. Here’s part of her self-pitying, self-justifying rant:

Desmond likes dressing like a girl, so what? How is that sexualizing him or abusing him? Only you seem to see it as sexual. I see a plain old 10-year old boy in a dress. Also, how is that promoting pedophilia? Explain it to me please. If there is a pedophile anywhere, they will go for whatever child they can most easily attack whether it is mine or yours. It is proven that, for one, most pedophiles are heterosexual, and two, they go for the weakest children, the kids who keep their heads down, the ones who beg for attention and love because they get it nowhere else. That isn’t Desmond at all. He is being raised with unconditional love, has been treated as an intelligent individual, and has been told every day of his life that he is a worthy person in this world, no matter what. He is self-confident, smart, and self-aware. Desmond constantly has a parent with him at all times, is supervised, and he only attends family friendly or all ages events.

Well, guess that policy changed. He’s now vamping at gay bars. More Wendy:

You know, this year has been extremely difficult. And now this grand show of cruelty against a child, my son, has really hit me hard. I am upset, I am angry, and I am at a loss. It’s been so, so hard. I am unemployed and have had trouble reentering the workplace because there is too much competition for jobs, especially this time of year. I am qualified, and have 15+ years of experience, but so do thousands of other applicants. It doesn’t help when potential employers can Google you and see the kind of filth openly up for display that you people post. My good name has been slandered and dragged thru the mud and we suffer. You don’t just hurt feelings when you attack people online, you can also hurt their ability to make a living. And these things live on the internet forever. We DO NOT make money from the interviews, videos, and photos that Desmond does. We do them because he wants to do them. We do not force him. He has declined to do assignments because he didn’t want to at the time or did not agree with the concept. This belief that we are somehow doing all of this for money is absurd. We are poor. Very poor. After paying rent, we usually have about $200 to last the whole month to cover any bills and food. We have used up both of our 401ks just trying to survive. We have borrowed embarrassing amounts of money from extended family. This year, there won’t even be a Christmas at our house because we can’t afford it. Desmond said “It’s okay, Santa will bring me something!” and it breaks my heart because he won’t, he can’t. My older daughter is fortunately an adult already and has the benefit of understanding our situation. She is trying to buy the gifts this year with her own college money and I feel so ashamed because I have always worked and provided for my kids.

Where do you even start with that? Here’s the knockout:

We have never revealed this to the public in any interview, article, or video, but I feel this is the time, due to the nastiness and scope of the attack we received and continue to receive. Desmond is on the autism spectrum….But at the end of the day, this 10-year old boy has been able to overcome his disorder’s symptoms and behavior issues and become successful in pursuing his interests. He likes dressing up, dance, voguing, and fashion design. HOW ARE THOSE INTERESTS HURTING YOU??? Please, someone explain that to me. Frankly speaking, it takes most people until their adulthood to figure out how to live with any disorder or disease. Desmond feels most focused and comfortable when he is designing his outfits and dressing up. It helps his autism and helps keep his behavior under control, which means he has a high quality of life right now. If it helps with the autism and hurts no one around him, why is this so wrong? How is this criminal? How is this bad parenting?

Wendy and Andrew Napoles are justifying turning their special-needs child into a sexualized freak who performs for men in gay bars by saying its medically therapeutic. Here is their 11-year-old son, photographed recently in a Brooklyn gay nightclub:

Desmond, dancing for cash in a Brooklyn gay bar

Just as sickening is the role the national, New York-based media have played in promoting this debasing exploitation. This kid is everywhere. If there’s a national TV program or print publication that has done anything other than praise Desmond and his parents to the stars, I haven’t yet found it.

Here’s a particularly choice example, from Fatherly, a parenting website with 30 employees and an estimated $2.2 million in annual revenue. Writer Lizzy Francis’s March 2018 profile of Desmond’s parents is straight-up propaganda. Excerpt:

It’s hard to tell whether or not Desmond knows the extent to which his parents have sacrificed for him. He knows that they love and accept him — and if they didn’t, he says he would just “leave.” (Andrew shakes this off as nothing more than attitude, but is quick to admit his kid would do drag even without his blessing.) But Desmond is a kid who doesn’t know what it’s like not to have the support of his parents. He never will.

Wendy hasn’t considered pulling the plug on public appearances in order to make getting a job easier. Instead, she’s doubled down. She calls herself his “dragager” and openly admits that if his career takes off, it’ll be a full-time gig. She’ll be a showbiz parent. There will be rehearsals and expenses and late nights and busy weekends.

This isn’t what she chose, it’s what Desmond chose. But acceptance and attention have created a feedback loop. Whether it’s virtuous or vicious is a matter of perspective, but it looks happy. Desmond looks happy.

Oh no, it’s not what Wendy chose at all! All stage parents tell themselves that.

And speaking of the feedback loop, the national media are a crucial part of what’s encouraging these two deadbeats to monetize their child’s disorder. The media have taken Desmond and his parents’ disgusting sexualization of him (he’s not dressing like typical 11-year-old girls, note well) and turned the kid into an LGBT advocate. Fatherly describes its mission as “to empower men to raise great kids and lead more fulfilling adult lives” — but it is aiding and abetting a phenomenon that is very close to pedophilia. Is it simply inconceivable that Fatherly would publish a fawning profile of a dad who facilitated his daughter’s child beauty pageant career — nor should it.

I wonder if reporter Lizzy Francis knew that the parents she slobbered over in print allowed their autistic child to be on a convicted murderer’s YouTube show? It appeared online three months before Fatherly‘s piece ran. If not, why not? You’re supposed to research your subjects when you profile them. Then again, that inconvenient fact doesn’t fit the happy-clappy progressive-parent narrative. Nope, not a thing wrong with these parents. Fatherly says so … as does Good Morning America, Today, the Daily Beast, Huffington Post, Vogue, and many others. Call something pro-LGBT, and there’s nothing they won’t justify.

So, now we have video evidence that the Napoles have allowed Desmond to perform in at least two gay bars this autumn — one in Brooklyn, and one in San Francisco. Hello, CPS! Where are you?! This is a little special-needs boy we’re talking about — and he apparently has nobody in his life who will protect him.

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