Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert famously knows how to be disruptive. It’s her thing. She goes toe to toe with would-be gun regulators, drag queens, Muslims, and even fellow Freedom Caucus members. To Boebert and her far-right base, all the world’s a schoolyard in which to pick fights—and maybe hit vapes.
This is all to say that it’s not so surprising that disruption (and vaporization) would be her main approach when she went to see a traveling stage performance of the Beetlejuice musical in Denver on September 10. The congresswoman and her date—reportedly a Denver bar owner who skews Democratic—had a blast until they didn’t. They were asked to leave the show after fellow theatergoers complained of Boebert’s vaping and general loudness, and the pair could be seen groping each other on surveillance footage. On the way out, per the security report obtained by the Denver NBC affiliate, she said, “Do you know who I am?” and “I am on the board,” and “I will be contacting the mayor.” (She’s since denied this last bit. “There’s reports saying I was arguing, threatening to call the Denver mayor. I don’t know why I would ever call the Denver mayor. I think he would have tried to lock me up,” she said Sunday in an interview with the far-right news network OAN.)
Initially, Boebert said that she was kicked out for enjoying the musical too much. “I plead guilty to laughing and singing too loud!” she tweeted. This is true, in a way. Boebert was not lying. She really did seem to be enjoying everything around her too much. The congresswoman with the teenage worldview was remembering what it was like to physically be a teenager, maybe. Denver’s 9News obtained a recording of the incident, and the video clearly shows Boebert vaping, dancing, and partaking in some light groping with her companion. The video also shows a pregnant woman behind her leaning forward and saying something to her. There’s no audio, but the woman told The Denver Post that she asked Boebert to stop vaping. Boebert would not. Please, a round of applause for local journalism and night-vision technology.
Boebert had initially denied the vaping portion of the incident, but had to walk that back when confronted with the video of herself vaping a ton. She blamed her divorce and “the natural anxiety of being in a new environment.”
“Whether it was the excitement of seeing a much-anticipated production or the natural anxiety of being in a new environment, I genuinely did not recall vaping that evening when I discussed the night’s events with my campaign team while confirming my enthusiasm for the musical,” the statement read. “Regardless of my belief, it’s clear now that was not accurate.”
The congresswoman also told OAN, “I was a little too eccentric. I’m very known for having an animated personality, maybe overtly animated personality. I was laughing, I was singing, having a fantastic time,” Boebert said. “Was told to kinda settle it down a little bit, which I did, but then my next slip-up was taking a picture.”
Who among us has not forgotten our disturbing actions due to the thrill of finally getting to see the Beetlejuice musical? Who among us has not been punished by the media for our sparkling personality? Who among us has not suppressed all memory of certain behaviors due to the “natural anxiety of being in a new environment”?
Consider this before casting the first stone.
Kenzie Bryant
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