Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is set to consider erecting a statue of a US porn star as a national monument in Odesa. A petition, which demands the demolition of a statue of Russian Empress Catherine the Great to be replaced with a statue of porn star Billy Herrington, has received more than 25,786 signatures. According to Ukrainian law, if any petition is signed by more than 25,000 people, President is bound to consider the petition within 10 days.
On May 20, Ukrainian activist Oleksiy Yuriyovych Matveev started the petition which claims that the statue of Catherine the Great is an oppressive statue to Ukrainians and also states that Odesa has its own culture and sense of humor as it's not part of the Russian culture.
Who Was Billy Harrington?
Herrington's porn career took off in the late '90s and early '00s after winning Playgirl magazine's Real Men of the Month contest when he was 24. He was featured in such films as HotMen CoolBoyz and Conquered and received the award for "Best Group Sex Scene" at the 2002 Adult Erotic Gay Video Awards, according to PRIDE.
In the mid-2000s, Herrington left the porn industry and started working on his body-building career. He died at the age of 48 in 2018.
Herrington's Statue Will Be A Major Tourist Attraction
Underlining that Herrington's statue will be a major tourist attraction as the porn star is very popular, the petition also stresses that erecting Herrington's statue will also send a position indication that Ukraine supports the LGBTQ community.
In recent several activists have been demanding the removal of Russian Empress Catherine the Great, which was built in 1900 to commemorate her founding of the city after conquering the land from the Ottoman Empire in 1794.
According to Washington Examiner, the petition made its way to Russian state TV, where it was mocked by the presenters. One of the panelists connected the nature of the pornographic "gachimuchi" films Billy Herrington was known for with Ukraine in general, saying in between the laughs of his other panelists. The presenter said that the idea of these movies is that some muscular boys meet and begin fighting, and it ends the same way as porn movies. "In Ukraine, it's all like that. Ukraine is being turned into a gachimuchi country!"
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