BROOKLYN, NEW YORK: Genderqueer artist King Princess, whose great-great-grandparents died on the Titanic, has been rebuked for laughing in a video insulting Titanic victims on TikTok. The 24-year-old vocalist, actual name Mikaela Mullaney Straus, is the great-great-granddaughter of Isidor and Ida Straus, Macy's co-owners who were immortalized in James Cameron's 1997 movie.
In addition to being linked to passengers on the disastrous Titanic, the pop star is also related to the wife of OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush who was onboard the 22ft submersible that tragically exploded on the Titanic dive, killing all five onboard, according to the Daily Mail.
'I just want to go to the inhabitable depths of the ocean, in a GameCube?'
The 'Let Us Die' singer in her now-deleted TikTok reportedly said, "Like, look at my f****** family, right? Who wants to take a boat across the ocean? That sounds terrible. But they did it because they had the money to, and they died." She added in the video, "So now these people are like, "Oh, I have so much money, oh my god, I just want to go to the inhabitable depths of the ocean, in a GameCube?" No. Dead. Sorry. 'Oh, and rich people are not exempt from making really stupid decisions, obviously."
She further questioned, "Why do rich people go to space? You don't need to be there. You're not a f****** scientist. Because they make terrible decisions, constantly. I hate this world. One more thing: The sheer irony of these billionaires going down to visit the gravesite of other billionaires and then dying, is so crazy to me. Anybody else feel this way?" At the end of the video, the 24-year-old bursts into laughter. The 'Cheap Queen' performer reportedly received huge backlash online for the video.
Isodor and Ida Straus were among 1,500 passengers who perished when Titanic sank
Straus's parents are OIiver Straus Jr and Agnes Mullaney. Her father owns and maintains the successful Brooklyn recording studio 'Mission Sound,' as per Rolling Stone. Isodor and Ida Straus, Straus' great-great-grandparents, were among the 1,500 passengers who perished when the Titanic sank in 1912. When Ida realized that her husband, a co-owner of Macy's, would be unable to join her in the lifeboat owing to the "women and children first" policy, she refused to leave him and remained onboard the sinking ship. The couple's love tragedy has become one of the most famously repeated passenger testimonies almost a century later as they are portrayed in James Cameron's 1997 film.
'They were very rich and Jewish, [but] I didn’t inherit any of this money'
"They were very rich and Jewish, [but] I didn’t inherit any of this money. It was a little frustrating, but whatever," she told the publication back in 2019 about her great-grandparents. The backlash follows the revelation that Wendy Rush, the wife of OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, was also linked to the Straus clan. In 1986, Wendy Rush, then Wendy Hollings Weil, wed businessman and engineer Stockton Rush. She is a descendant of Minnie Straus, a daughter of Isidor and Ida Straus who wed Dr Richard Weil in 1905. According to The New York Times, Wendy Rush's father is Dr Richard Weil III, whose son, Richard Weil Jr, subsequently served as president of Macy's New York.
'I’m a drag queen'
Straus identifies herself as a genderqueer and a lesbian was defined by the publication as a potentially new kind of rock star, or at least an old kind of rock star for a new age. Straus is “emotionally lesbian,” she told NYT in 2020, but “culturally” a gay man: “Not really a woman, I’ve never been a woman. I’m a drag queen.” However, about other music, she elaborated to Rolling Stone, “I don’t want to be grouped in with only gay people. That’s ridiculous. I want to battle everyone. If you’re going to compare me, compare me to straight people, too.”
