‘Paris Is Burning’ star’s family slams ‘Murder of Venus Xtravaganza’ playwright

Netflix’s new documentary I’m Your Venus chronicles the family of Paris Is Burning documentary star and trans ballroom icon Venus Xtravaganza as they fight for legal justice after her 1988 murder, but the film also sees her brothers sticking up for their sibling against a playwright who turned her death into a 2013 stage show in New York City.

The film picks up on Venus’ siblings, John, Joe, and Louie Pellagatti, who grapple with their eccentric sister and performance artist’s death, after she was found strangled by an unknown assailant under a mattress inside a hotel room three years before director Jennie Livingston’s influential documentary featuring Venus hit theaters.

While Venus’ impact on pop culture — particularly in LGBTQ circles — has been noted throughout the decades, the Pellagatti brothers raise a specific issue with a stage production that dramatized the events of Venus’ murder.

“For me, when I saw in Paris Is Burning, my sister explaining in her words, all I want to do is be loved and be married and have a house with a white picket fence… when I heard that, it started making sense,” Louie says in the film, after noting that the family struggled to accept her identity at first. “But, when we found out about how she was taken from us, that brought a lot of anger.”

John then observes that a play ignited intense feelings among those who knew Venus when she was still alive.

“I’ll tell you what got it started, to be honest with you, is when that f—ing a–hole did that thing, he did an off-Broadway play [about solving] the mystery murder of Venus Xtravaganza,” John says. “So that kind of opened up some wounds, and that’s when we said, you know what, there’s got to be something we could do that’s better than this bulls—.”

Though the family doesn’t mention a specific production by name, a 2013 play by writer-director Carlo D’Amore titled The Murder of Venus Xtravaganza 1988 opened as an interactive murder mystery that involved the audience in the events surrounding Venus’ death.

At the time, Venus’ ballroom collective, the House of Xtravaganza — the current mother of which, Gisele Alicea, also appears in the documentary to assist the Pallegattis — released a statement condemning the production as “inappropriate, opportunistic, and disrespectful to Venus’ legacy” in the scene.

When reached for comment on the contents of I’m Your Venus, D’Amore tells Entertainment Weekly he was inspired by Venus’ story after first seeing Paris Is Burning at age 22, that he wanted to “share her story” and the story of the ballroom community with his audience, and that he’s “proud of the conversation it helped spark” in the aftermath.

“That said, I realize now that using Venus’ name in the original title was an error in judgment from a young theater producer. It was a decision made without full consideration of the impact it could have on her family, and for that, I sincerely apologize,” he says via email.

He continues, “When the family reached out to me back then, I met with them, listened to their concerns, and invited them to experience the work firsthand, as I was and continue to be proud of the story we told in our little off-Broadway production. They ultimately came to see the piece, and I gave them space to speak to the audience at the end of the performance. My intention was, and still is, to bring visibility to a story that needed to be told.”

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Elsewhere in the Netflix film, Venus’ brothers discuss their treatment of her after she came out as trans in the early ’80s, with John admitting that he “went ballistic on her” after her revelation.

“I remember I picked her up by her ankles and turned her upside-down. ‘There’s something wrong with you. You’re out of your f—ing mind,'” John says.

I’m Your Venus (which includes a cameo by RuPaul’s Drag Race queen Olivia Lux) eventually shows the trio attempting to make amends with José Disla Xtravaganza, one of Venus’ chosen family members, who noted that he was angry with the family for years after how he felt they treated his late friend.

The film additionally highlights the Pellagatti family’s quest to seek legal justice for Venus, as they attempt to reopen the case to identify her murderer as well as get her legal name posthumously changed on her death certificate as well as her gravestone.

In a 2019 interview with EW, Livingston also revealed that she was interested in further investigating Venus’ murder in a follow-up documentary.

“A good friend of mine was always like, ‘I think we should make a film about the murder of Venus and try and solve it,’” Livingston said at the time. “I like that idea of solving that, [because] trans people and particularly trans women get murdered, and those cases don’t get solved…. I’d feel weird initiating that, and it would also feel like I’d be trying to make entertainment out of someone I know being murdered. I can’t go there.”

I’m Your Venus is now streaming on Netflix.