Male Escort Claims Lindsey Graham Asked to Be Degraded With Homophobic Slurs During Paid Sex: 'He Was Loving Every Moment'

A male escort says the late Senator Lindsey Graham paid him $1,500 (£1,119) for an overnight booking at Washington's Mayflower Hotel and asked to be degraded during sex. When the escort used a homophobic slur, he says, Graham was 'loving every moment of that.'

Cory Burns, an adult film performer known as Sean Harding, makes the claim in The CLOSETocracy, a documentary by Swamp Watch Studios and Tystnaden Films released by The Young Turks on 22 October.

Three men in the film say Graham paid them for sex. One says he was 17.

It landed 12 days before South Carolina elects Graham's successor. None of the accounts has been independently verified, and Graham, who died on 11 July aged 71, denied being gay during his life.

What the Escort Says Happened in Lindsey Graham's Hotel Room

Burns says he turned to escort work while waiting tables in Atlanta, after his father threw him out for being gay.

In Washington, he says, a go-between booked him overnight on 9 November and sent a driver to take him to the Mayflower. The film's website dates it to 9 to 11 November 2015, during Graham's presidential run.

The client wanted dominant and submissive role play, Burns says. 'I really like to be degraded,' he recalls the man saying, adding that 'the more degrading the better.'

Burns says the man reacted to one anti-gay slur in particular, so he kept using it. Afterwards, the client pointed him to the agreed $1,500 in cash and cut the overnight booking short. 'I needed that', Burns recalls him saying.

A month or two later, Burns says, he saw the same man on television, named on screen as Lindsey Graham.

Burns's posts on 4 June 2020 helped popularise the 'Lady G' rumours that had followed Graham for years. He accused an unnamed Republican senator, initials 'LG', of hiring male sex workers while backing anti-LGBTQ+ laws. He stopped after receiving death threats, he said.

Escort Says He Was 17 When Lindsey Graham Questioned His Age

The film opens with a man named only as Kelvin. 'My name is Kelvin. I had sex with Lindsey Graham when I was 17,' he says.

Kelvin says he started escorting at 16 because his family was poor. He alleges that Graham, then a congressman, booked him through an escort website for a meeting in Arizona in July 2001, when, according to the film, Graham was in the state as a Fourth of July guest of Senator John McCain.

Once Graham got a good look at him, Kelvin says, he grew alarmed. 'You're 17, aren't you?' he recalls Graham asking. Kelvin insisted he was 18. Asked for ID, he says he told Graham he did not carry it, for safety.

He says Graham went ahead after having him state his age aloud, which he believes was recorded because he spotted a blinking red light. He was paid $120 (£90). 'I felt powerless in arguing with him about it,' he says.

Arizona's age of consent is 18. Young Turks founder Cenk Uygur claimed on X the day before the release, 'One of the incidents was highly illegal, and on tape!' None of the allegations has been proven.

Third Man Says He Told Friends at the Time

Jesse says he met Graham at Washington's Beacon Hotel in 2012 and was paid $260 (£194). The film's website lists a second meeting, at a Days Inn in January 2014, for $250 (£187). 'I told multiple people about the encounter when it happened,' he says.

The film contrasts the accounts with Graham's votes against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, the Respect for Marriage Act, and the repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell.' Its website posts receipts and travel records it says support the men's timelines, though none places them with Graham.

Darline Graham Brushes Off Questions as Election Nears

His sister Darline Graham, appointed to the seat by Governor Henry McMaster, faces Democrat Annie Andrews on 3 November. A late-September InsiderAdvantage poll put her on 46% and Andrews on 45%; a Rasmussen Reports poll from 5 to 8 October had her ahead 49% to 45%.

The film includes earlier footage of a reporter asking her about claims that her brother used gay escorts, which she says she will not 'entertain'. It was filmed before the release and was not a response to these three accounts. Her office had not responded to requests for comment at the time of The Advocate's and Mediaite's reports.

Andrew Kolvet, executive producer of The Charlie Kirk Show, wrote on X, 'This isn't an October surprise, we've known this for years.'