Club Marcella performer says she was fired for remarks at Walton fundraiser

Owners of Club Marcella on Pearl Street – which features DJs, hip-hop nights and drag shows – said that is not the case. They said it was Vanna Deux’s “public conduct that was called into question.”

Now, Walton’s campaign is calling on Mayor Byron W. Brown to demand that Deux be rehired.

The mayor’s campaign team dismissed the suggestion and accused Walton of relying on “baseless allegations and divisive tactics.”

Deux, the drag performer who said the heads of the club fired her because they do not like Walton, is planning an event for Walton at a different location to counter a Brown fundraiser to be held at Club Marcella on Thursday.

“I’m trying to organize a show with all the local drag performers who support India to do a fundraiser at one of the other spaces, be it that night or sometime shortly in the future, because I feel like I need to say, ‘You messed with the wrong person now,’ ” Deux told The Buffalo News on Saturday. “Because I believe so passionately in India Walton and her campaign and what she can do for the city.”

Deux was the emcee at a Walton fundraiser Thursday at Eugene V. Debs Hall on Peckham Street. Deux added that, during the event, some information was relayed to Joe Guagliardo and Michael Slyder – the owner and chief financial officer, respectively, at Club Marcella.

“We’re not really sure how this secondhand hearsay got back to Joe and Mike, but they thought that I was encouraging people to go to the Byron Brown event just to boo the mayor, which I just simply didn’t,” said Deux, who noted that a crowd of 200 people could vouch for the remarks.

“Someone in the audience said it, and I might have chuckled at it, but I certainly didn’t say it myself. I said something along the lines of: ‘If you don’t want to support Byron Brown, you don’t have to. I encourage you to come to Club Marcella for the Byron Brown event and wear your India Walton gear.’ ”

The comment was meant to spark political discourse.

“That’s what America is. … We’re allowed to do that,” Deux said. “To me, that’s not an unsavory thing to say out loud.”

Slyder told The News on Sunday that he could not accept her suggestion that people disrupt the upcoming event for Brown. He called it dangerous and irresponsible and said the ownership could not continue with her as an independent contractor.

“You don’t play around with things like that,” Slyder said. “You don’t know how far that will go.”

He said several witnesses told him about her comments, and her denials “didn’t ring true.”

Even if the mayor urged him to keep Deux as a performer, Slyder said he wouldn’t do it.

On Friday evening, he had tweeted a “response from Club Marcella,” saying Deux’s political activism did not factor into the decision to fire her.

“While I have the long-held belief to never swing at a pitch in the proverbial political dirt, I would be remiss if I did not state for the record that Ms. Deux’s political activism had nothing to do with our decision to cut ties with her. She is acutely aware that it was her public conduct that was called into question – and rightfully so,” he tweeted.

“Activism of any sort implies a respect for the process and the people engaged in that process. Encouraging others to attend an event for the sole purpose of disrespecting a candidate is plainly not activism,” the statement continued. “Dissent and discourse are the lifeblood of any free society, but so too our cooperation and respect so that, in the end, the better angels of our nature may prevail.”

Tensions between Deux and her former employers were brewing before Walton’s fundraiser Thursday, Deux said, when she posted on Facebook objections to a planned fundraiser for Brown at Club Marcella.

Deux said she doesn’t regret her statements.

“I’m in my 30s and I’ve not been scared to use my voice,” she said. “I just would encourage people to politically discourse. That’s sort of what America was founded on.”

News staff reporter Matthew Spina contributed to this report.