The mother of one of Jeffrey Dahmer’s victims Tony Hughes has slammed Ariana Grande after the singer shockingly revealed the serial killer, who viciously murdered over a dozen men, was her dream dinner party guest.
Tony, who was deaf and non-verbal gay model had been lured by Dahmer to his apartment on May 24, 1991, before being killed and dismembered.
The ‘Thank u, next’ singer Ariana Grande received backlash after she appeared on an episode of the audio-show Podcrushed – hosted by ‘Gossip Girl’ and ‘You’ actor Penn Badgley.
During the interview she recalled the moment she told a ‘young fan’ she fantasized about dining with the murderer – who raped, dismembered and killed at least 17 boys and men between 1978 and 1991.
Now Shirley Hughes, the mother of one of the serial killer’s victims has hit back at the star saying: ‘To me, it seems like she’s sick in her mind. It’s not fancy or funny to say you would have wanted to do dinner with him.
‘It’s also not something you should say to young people, which she says she did’, Shirley Hughes told TMZ.
She also said she was disturbed when the pop-star laughed during the podcast about her fascination with Dahmer.
Ariana’s macabre admission came after she shared that she was ‘infatuated with serial killers’ from a young age.
‘I mean Jeffrey Dahmer is pretty fascinating’, she claimed to have told the fans.
Tony’s sister Barbara added that the comments glamorize Dahmer, who was beaten to death by a fellow inmate while in prison in 1994.
The Hughes family were not the only ones to slam Ariana’s comments. Fans also condemned the singer’s comments as ‘vile’ and ‘offensive’, and branding her as ‘tone deaf’.
In a thread titled, ‘Ariana Grande would love to have dinner with Jeffrey Dahmer,’ people said the performer had been ‘horribly offensive.’
One person wrote: ‘I didn’t even watch the clip because this is exactly what I thought when I read the headline. Unless the question is, “Which serial killer would you have dinner with” and you have a gun to your head there’s no damn reason to say this.
Someone else added: ‘That was heartbreaking to watch, can you imagine your loved ones being murdered in such horrific ways and then the killer is glorified in the media. I wish people would consider how shows like Dahmer impact the surviving family members.’
Another user said: ‘Joking about wanting to have dinner with him is sick and horribly offensive to the victims’ families, who are still alive and affected by the tragedy fyi. Let’s stop glorifying these psychos and pretending they are intensely enamoring people – they’re not, and if you met them in real life you would quickly realize why.’
Between 1978 and 1991, Jeffrey raped, killed, and dismembered 17 boys and men – Steven Hicks (18), Steven Tuomi (28), James Doxtator (14), Richard Guerrero (25), Anthony Sears (24), Ricky Beeks (33), Eddie Smith (28), Ernest Miller (24), David Thomas (23), Curtis Straughter (18), Errol Lindsey (19), Anthony Hughes (31), Konerak Sinthasomphone (14), Matt Turner (20), Jeremiah Weinberger (23), Oliver Lacy (23), and Joseph Bradehoft (25).
Dahmer – otherwise known as the Milwaukee Monster or the Milwaukee Cannibal – had been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, schizotypal personality disorder, and a psychotic disorder before he was beaten to death by a fellow Columbia Correctional Institution inmate in 1994.
In 2022, Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan released their dismally-reviewed Netflix crime thriller, Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, which depicted his unimaginable crimes and the victims desperate for justice.
Actor Evan Peters went on to win the Golden Globe Award for his performance as Jeffrey, thanking everyone who watched the show in his acceptance speech: ‘It was a difficult one to make, a difficult one to watch but I sincerely hope some good came out of it.’
And while the show-runners claimed to have contacted 20 of the victims’ family members and friends, Rita Isbell – the sister of Erroll Lindsey – told Business Insider she was never contacted about the ‘harsh and careless’ show, which ‘retraumatized’ her.