“I was too eccentric!” Boebert tries to downplay fondling man’s genitals in the presence of children

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) is attempting to downplay the inappropriate behavior that got her booted from a Denver theater, describing herself as “eccentric.”

On Sunday, September 10, the far-right congresswoman and a male companion were escorted by security out of a performance of the musical Beetlejuice at the city-owned Buell Theatre in Denver after the venue’s staff received multiple complaints that the couple was vaping, singing loudly, recording the show, and “causing a disturbance.”

Related:

Hypocrite Lauren Boebert is reportedly dating a man who hosted a drag show at his bar

Bar owner Quinn Gallagher was with the anti-LGBTQ+ congresswoman when they were kicked out of a musical over the weekend.

While Boebert confirmed that she was asked to leave the performance, her campaign manager initially denied that the congresswoman was vaping inside the theater. But security footage from the venue obtained by 9News clearly shows Boebert exhaling vapor or smoke at one point. A woman seated behind the couple who was reportedly pregnant can also be seen speaking to Boebert. The woman told the Denver Post that when she asked Boebert to stop vaping, she simply replied, “No.” She also claimed that Boebert called her a “sad and miserable person.”

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The security footage also shows Boebert and her date, identified as Aspen bar owner Quinn Gallagher, getting handsy with each other during the performance. Gallagher can be seen groping Boebert’s chest, while the congresswoman places her hand in Gallagher’s lap.

Boebert has used her position in Congress to vilify the LGBTQ+ community under the guise of protecting children from “sexualization” and “grooming.” She has described taking children to drag shows as “child abuse.”

Following the release of the security video, critics are accusing Boebert of hypocrisy for engaging in sexualized behavior during a performance at which children were present.

“Lauren Boebert has talked a lot about LGBTQ people, ‘appropriate behavior.’ And now she gets caught fondling her partner in a packed theatre,” journalist and trans activist Erin Reed wrote in a post on X (the social media platform formerly known as Twitter). “Imagine for one moment a trans person was caught doing this. The news stories. The bills. The media circus.”

“I am not a person who is gonna sex-shame someone,” Vanity Fair special correspondent Molly Jong-Fast told CNN’s Jim Acosta. “But I would say this is a woman who has gone around for the last—since she’s been in congress claiming that everyone who’s LBGTQ is a groomer, and then she’s in a family theater doing what is really not appropriate in a family theater… So, in my mind, it’s not the sex, it’s the hypocrisy.”

On Friday, Boebert released a statement apologizing for her behavior. “The past few days have been difficult and humbling, and I’m truly sorry for the unwanted attention my Sunday evening in Denver has brought to the community,” the statement read. “While none of my actions or words as a private citizen that night were intended to be malicious or meant to cause harm, the reality is they did and I regret that.”

Boebert went on to claim that she “genuinely did not recall vaping” during the performance and blamed her behavior on her ongoing divorce from her husband Jayson Boebert. “There’s no perfect blueprint for going through a public and difficult divorce,” her statement read. “I’ve tried to handle it with strength and grace as best I can, but I simply fell short of my values on Sunday.”

Over the weekend, however, Boebert was back to downplaying the situation. “I was a little too eccentric, I’m very known for having an animated personality. Maybe an overtly animated personality,” she told OAN host Dan Ball on Saturday. “I was laughing, I was singing, having a fantastic time. I was told to kind of settle it down a little bit, which I did. But then, my next slip up was taking a picture of the cast on stage.”

Boebert has not commented on her sexualized behavior with Gallagher.

The second-term congresswoman’s “eccentric” behavior has resulted in multiple past arrests. As the Denver Post reported in 2020, prior to being elected, Boebert was arrested four times between 2010 and 2015 for minor crimes, including harassing a neighbor, getting into a verbal altercation with police, and failure to appear in court.

In March 2022, Boebert and fellow MAGA Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) reportedly got into a heated argument that witnesses feared would turn violent.