Two Western North Carolina drag performers have issued cease-and-desist letters to Republican congressional candidate Jennifer Balkcom’s campaign after their likenesses were used in an AI-generated ad attacking Balkcom’s Democratic opponent Jamie Ager.
The ad, which was paid for by the National Republican Congressional Campaign, approved by Balkcom, and posted by the North Carolina Republican Party’s official X account last week, features AI-generated images of Ager dancing with a drag queen in a barn while children look on.
Related
Asheville, NC-based performers Nova and Divinity Holeburn (who also performs as Divine, the Bearded Lady) say the scenes depicted in Balkcom’s ad never happened.
Insights for the LGBTQ+ community
Subscribe to our briefing for insights into how politics impacts the LGBTQ+ community and more.
“None of it was real,” Nova told WLOS. “I’ve never met the man in my life. I’m going to be honest with you: I ain’t never been to a barn dance in my life.”
Ager’s campaign also released a statement claiming the ad is AI-generated.
“Our opponent is attacking Jamie with 100% fake, AI-generated ads. She can’t win on the truth, so she is using AI to lie,” Ager campaign manager Grayson Barnette said, according to the Raleigh News & Observer. “It’s insulting to the intelligence of voters in western North Carolina and another example of the exact corrupt system he is running against. Jamie got into this race because we can and must do politics better.”
As the News & Observer notes, the ad appears to have manipulated real footage of a barn dance at Ager and wife Amy’s Hickory Nut Gap Farms used in an Ager campaign ad. North Carolina reportedly has no laws on the books requiring political ads to disclose when they are AI-generated.
The ad’s central claim — that Ager “hosted a drag queen barn dance” — is based on an October 16 report from right-wing outlet Breitbart, according to text overlaying the AI imagery.
Contrary to the ad’s text, however, Breitbart did not report that Ager “hosted a drag queen barn dance.” Instead, the outlet reported that the Agers’ family business — which rents its 300–500 capacity barn for “corporate events, birthdays, weddings, and more,” according to its website — hosted a family-friendly “Fantasy Festival” on May 4, 2019. A Facebook event page for the 2019 event, accessible via the Internet Archive, listed the Beer City Sisters, the now-defunct Asheville chapter of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, as among its lineup of local performers.
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence is an international order of drag nuns that have played a vital role in LGBTQ+ culture for decades. The group has a dramatic history of activism that exemplifies its playful, queer countercultural spirit as well as its devotion to marginalized communities.
But besides Nova, it’s unclear whether any of the performers whose names and likenesses were used in Balkcom’s ad ever actually performed at Hickory Nut Gap Farms. According to the ad, the fictional “drag queen barn dance” “featured” Sister Domina Trix and Sister Helen Bedd — names the Breitbart post pulled from a May 30 Instagram post showing new members’ nametags.
The ad’s second claim isn’t even related to events hosted by Ager at Hickory Nut Gap Farms. “Last month, Ager wrote a check to Blue Ridge Pride, whose family-friendly festival featured Divine Holeburn and Will Pounder,” a voiceover claims as AI-generated images of Holeburn and a figure wearing a puppy hood appear onscreen.
According to the News & Observer, FEC records show the Ager campaign donated $5,000 to Blue Ridge Pride in July. Last month, Holeburn posted a Facebook reel in which she introduced herself as “Divine, the Bearded Lady” and said she would be emceeing Blue Ridge Pride Festival’s main stage on September 26. Pounder, however, was not listed as a performer at this year’s festival, according to the News & Observer.
Regardless, in an October 23 statement posted to Instagram, Blue Ridge Pride clarified that “While Jamie Ager did apply for sponsorship at the 2026 Pride Festival, his application was denied and the accompanying funds were returned.”
“Pride is a sacred space for LGBTQ+ expression, not a platform for political candidates,” the statement continued. “Unlike these politicians, we do not rely on AI to generate events that did not happen.”
The same day, Holeburn shared a Facebook post in which she said she had issued a cease-and-desist notice to Balkcom’s campaign over the AI ad. Nova also told WLOS she’d sent a cease-and-desist letter to the campaign.
In a statement, Balkcom’s campaign did not address the use of AI in the ad to depict scenarios that never happened and instead appeared to double down on the ad’s misleading claims.
“Liberal Jamie Ager is sending his left-wing army to attack his political opponents after being exposed for hosting events exposing young children to inappropriate performances from individuals like Sister Domina Trix and Sister Helen Bedd,” the Balkcom campaign said, according to WLOS. “Ager owes North Carolina voters answers for why he’s trying to push sexualized performers onto kids.”
Balkcom’s ad is part of a broader trend of Republican candidates trying to revive and weaponize anti-LGBTQ+ hysteria to turn out conservative voters in the 2026 midterms. It’s also the latest recent example of the party employing desperate, ethically dubious tactics to save a flailing candidate in what would typically be a safe race for a Republican.
As the New York Times reported over the weekend, North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District, where Ager and Balkcom are competing for the Congressional seat vacated by incumbent Rep. Chuck Edwards (R), is a predominantly Republican district where a Democrat has not won since 2007. But amid the rising cost of living, an unpopular war, and President Donald Trump’s dismal approval ratings, the Cook Political Report has the race leaning Democrat.
Nova, meanwhile, sees Balkcom’s ad as having implications beyond the midterms.
“It’s just hurtful towards an entire community of people. And it’s not just us in the ads that are mad. It’s the entire LGBTQ in western North Carolina,” she told WLOS. “I feel like they are mocking the community. I think this idea that drag queens want to indoctrinate children is a huge aspect of this, and that is simply not the truth.”
Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.