Turns Out the Statue of Liberty Might Be a Drag Queen

Long referred to as “Lady Liberty,” the torch-wielding statue that once greeted immigrants as they made their way to New York City may hold an unexpected secret. She may have actually been based on a man.

HBO’s new documentary, Liberty: Mother of Exiles, explores the history of one of the most famous statues in the world. And while the history of the Statue of Liberty has always been part fact, part rumors, co-director Randy Barbato shared with Salon one of his favorite theories, that she was based on sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi’s brother.

The theory first came about back in 2016, established by writer Elizabeth Mitchell. She was exploring the commonly held idea that Bartholdi based the Statue of Liberty on his mother when she realized family photos told a different story.

“As I was looking at it more carefully, the structure of the face isn’t really the same. [His mother] has a more arched eyebrow, has a thinner nose, has thinner lips, even in her youth,” she said. “And he was a bust-maker…and was known for his accuracy.”

“Going through photos he had in his files of his brother, I started to look at the face more carefully, and it really did look to be like Liberty. His brother in his adult years had actually gone mad, and it was Bartholdi’s task to go once a week to visit, sometimes [spending] hours just staring at his brother, who was not speaking.”

The possibility that one of the most iconic monuments of the United States is essentially a giant drag queen is seriously gay rights. But either way, she’ll always be an LGBTQ icon in our hearts.