Culture

A White Republican Politician Claimed He Was A “Black Gay Guy” & Sent The Internet Into Meltdown

While everyone initially thought the Republican forgot to post to his burner account, it turned out to be a whole lot worse -- and now Patti LaBelle is involved.

by Michelle Rennex  11 November 2020
Dan Purdy Dean Browning Black Gay Guy twitter explained

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Having a burner Twitter account or finsta is a pretty normal thing these days — as is the perpetual fear of accidentally posting something to your main, that your followers were never meant to see.

Unluckily for Dean Browning, a former Pennsylvanian Republican congressional candidate, it looks like this fear became a reality when he tweeted that he was a “Black gay guy” on his verified Twitter account early this morning — which people assumed was a case of a classic burner account mixup.

But it’s actually a lot more complicated than that.

Responding to a tweet that criticised Donald Trump for destroying the measures that Barack Obama had put in place during his time in office, Dean Browning claiming that he was a “Black gay guy” and that “Obama did nothing for me”.

“I’m a Black gay guy and I can personally say that Obama did nothing for me, my life only changed a little bit and it was for the worse,” the now-deleted tweet read. “Everything is so much better under Trump though. I feel respected – which I never do when democrats are involved.”

The Black pro-Trump tweet almost immediately caught the eye of people online as they noticed that Browning was, in fact, a white man. A verified white man. A white man who had literally just run for a House of Representatives seat and lost.

As expected, Browning quickly deleted his tweet but not before the internet screenshot the evidence.

Armed with a screenshot of the original tweet, people began to speculate that Dean Browning had clearly forgotten to log into of his burner Twitter account, accidentally posting the statement to his main account.

Who The Hell Is Dan Purdy?

This theory continued to swirl online when The Washington Post’s Philip Bump discovered that a Black, gay Trump supporter called “Dan Purdy” had been replying to a lot of Dean Browning’s tweet with similar wording.

Having only joined Twitter in October this year, Dan Purdy’s replies often side with Browning’s stance (almost immediately after a tweet is posted) and uses the terms “I’m Black and gay”, which is mighty suspicious. The Dan Purdy account, prior to being suspended, also posted some very racist and sexist tweets about Black people, too.


In response to the claims that he was using a burner account to pretend to be a Black man to make Trump look better, Dean Browning said he was simply “quoting a message” that he had received earlier in the week.

“Sorry if context was not clear. Trump received record minority votes and record LGBTQI+ votes,” Dean Browning said earlier this morning. “Many people won’t say it vocally, but do in private.”

Quite suspiciously, at almost the exact same time, the Dan Purdy account also tweeted out their own explanation via video. While the @DanPurdy322 Twitter account has since been suspended, the man in the video clarified, “My name is Dan Purdy, and I am indeed a Black, gay man”.

“The message that you saw on Dean’s Twitter was posted, I–I actually don’t know how it was posted, but I did send it to him because I had a problem with how people of my race and sexual persuasion are treating Donald Trump,” “Dan Purdy” said to camera. “I don’t have problem with Donald Trump on those levels and I don’t know why so many people pretend to.”

“So what’s the big deal? I sent that message to Dean. Dean accidentally posted it somehow and that’s the end of the story,” the man in the video continued. “No, he’s not a sock puppet. No, I’m not a bot. I hope you understand.”

While everyone assumed “Dan Purdy” was being paid by Browning to release the video to corroborate his side of the story, it turned out to be a lot weirder than that — if it wasn’t all already weird enough.

Under the “Dan Purdy” reveal video, people begun to uncover that Dan Purdy sure did go by a lot of different names online. On Facebook, he goes by Billy/Byl Holte and on LinkedIn that name switches over to William Holte.

So it’s pretty clear that the man in the video is almost definitely not named “Dan Purdy”. However, if you’re ready for one more step into the weird, people now speculate that the Dan Purdy account is actually the burner account of William Holte, who is… Patti LaBelle’s nephew and son.

You see, the same profile pictures for both the Dan Purdy account and the Byl Holte Facebook account are the same cartoon avatar. The user name for the Facebook account is actually william.m.holte, and a quick Google search of William Holte reveals an image of the man in the video, and the information that he is Patti LaBelle’s son and nephew. This works because LaBelle adopted Holte after her sister — and Holte’s mother — died.

Now everyone is just confused, and so many questions remain. Like, is the “Dan Purdy” Twitter account actually Patti LaBelle’s son’s burner account? Did Dean Browning pay Patti LaBelle’s son to make a video to cover up his mistake? Will William Holte ever reveal that he is “Dan Purdy” in some ~Dan is Gossip Girl~ style twist? And most importantly, how does Patti LaBelle feel about her name getting thrown into this mess?

As we wait for some much needed clarification, please enjoy the internet going into meltdown over today’s main characters: Dean Browning and Dan Purdy.

Junkee has reached out to both Dean Browning and Dan Purdy aka William Holte, to try and make some sense out of what is going on.