Virginia House candidate Denver Riggleman (R) responded on Monday to the charge that he’s a “devotee of Bigfoot erotica,” saying that he’s more specifically interested…
Virginia House candidate Denver Riggleman (R) responded on Monday to the charge that he’s a “devotee of Bigfoot erotica,” saying that he’s more specifically interested in studying why people believe the creature exists.
Riggleman made the comments to The Daily Beast, adding that he did not draw the pictures his opponent posted on Instagram and that the images were posted as a joke with his military buddies.
“For me, the book really is an anthropological study on all the people who believe in Bigfoot and the different Bigfoot belief systems out there. That’s it,” Riggleman told the Daily Beast. “This is a real subculture in the United States and it’s hundreds of thousands of people that believe.”
Riggleman, who was selected as the GOP nominee to replace retiring Rep. Tom Garrett (R) in Virginia’s 5th Congressional District, later said his study “has nothing to do with Bigfoot erotica, which makes me laugh by the way. I’m sure Bigfoot erotica writers are excited everywhere.”
His statements came a day after his opponent, Leslie Cockburn (D), tweeted two screenshots of illustrations posted to Riggleman’s private Instagram page, both of which depict a nude Sasquatch with its genitals censored.
One of the posts includes a caption that describes the image as “cover art” for a book on the “mating habits” of Bigfoot.
“My opponent Denver Riggleman, running mate of Corey Stewart, was caught on camera campaigning with a white supremacist,” Cockburn wrote in a tweet. “Now he has been exposed as a devotee of Bigfoot erotica. This is not what we need on Capitol Hill.”
In addition, Cockburn referred to Riggleman as a “running mate” of Corey Stewart, the Republican nominee in a Virginia Senate race. Stewart has drawn scrutiny for his support of a Wisconsin GOP congressional candidate who espoused white nationalist and anti-Semitic views.
Riggleman called Cockburn’s tweets “absurd” while speaking with The Daily Progress on Sunday. He added on Monday while talking with The Daily Beast that he has no plans on changing the title of his book.
“It’s funny, I love it,” he said.
