Chef claimed Josh Hawley met twice with male escort. There's no proof

Claim: A chef claimed U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., twice met with a male escort. What's TrueIt's true that a chef named Joe Gera posted the claim on X in late July and early August 2026. However ... What's UndeterminedThere was no evidence to suggest the senator met with a male escort. Gera has yet to provide evidence to support his story. In a legal notice sent to Gera and shared with Snopes, an attorney representing the senator called Gera's accusations "false and defamatory," adding Hawley "has never exchanged money for sex, nor has he ever paid anyone to remain silent about sex." The notice demanded Gera retract or correct his prior statements and cease publishing anything similar in the future, warning of the potential of a defamation lawsuit. In July and August 2026, people shared a rumor about a chef alleging U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., twice met with a male escort. There was no evidence to support the story. For example, on Aug. 18, a Facebook user posted (archived), "Chef accuses anti-LGBTQ+ GOP Sen. Josh Hawley of kissing a male escort." The post's meme reads, "Married, MAGA, and anti-gay Senator Josh Hawley facing accusations he was seen kissing a male escort before bribing them to remain silent." (GayFamilyValues via Facebook) Searches of social media platforms found users sharing the rumor on Bluesky (archived), Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived), TikTok (archived) and X (archived). Believers of the gossip alleged hypocrisy by the Republican senator. Hawley, who has three children with his wife, has for years opposed legislation and rulings strengthening the rights of LGBTQ+ people. During that time, some critics have lobbed unproven allegations of the senator and other Republicans secretly living as gay men. In sum, a chef named Joe Gera, owner of the Pennsylvania-based caterer Keystone Cue, genuinely posted the allegations in several X posts in late July and early August 2026. However, there was no evidence, such as photos or videos, to support his story. When we contacted Gera for supplementary evidence to support his claims, he answered our questions in X direct messages but did not provide evidence supporting his story. As of now, we've rated this claim a mixture of true and undetermined information: It's true a chef made such a claim, and that claim's veracity is undetermined. Hawley's team said the allegations are not true. In a legal notice addressed to Gera that Hawley spokesperson Madeline Sieren, shared with Snopes, attorney David Thompson, a managing partner with the Washington-based Cooper & Kirk law firm representing the senator, called Gera's accusations "false and defamatory," adding that Hawley "has never exchanged money for sex, nor has he ever paid anyone to remain silent about sex." The notice demanded Gera retract or correct his prior statements and cease publishing anything similar in the future, and warned of the senator potentially filing a defamation lawsuit. We asked Gera if he wished to respond publicly to the legal notice and will update this article if we receive an answer. As we noted in an article examining unsubstantiated claims regarding the late Sen. Lindsey Graham's sexuality, Snopes is not in the business of declaring a person's gender or sexual identity. As of this writing, no credible, publicly available evidence supports the rumor that Hawley is gay. In X posts and messages to Snopes, Gera alleged to Snopes without providing proof that Hawley twice met with the same male escort in 2022 at two properties owned by Gera's former employer: the first time that February at a luxury hotel in Washington, D.C., and then at a Virginia mountain resort in April. He said his former employer did not wish to be named at this time for privacy reasons. Gera said he learned of the alleged Washington hotel encounter from a busboy named Carlos who purportedly witnessed Hawley kissing a man, though he did not provide a last name for us to contact that person for independent corroboration. Gera also claimed to have viewed surveillance footage showing the alleged incident but did not provide proof. In Gera's X posts, he quote-shared Hawley's posts about congressional matters with his allegations about the male escort. Gera's posts alleged that Hawley chased the busboy "into the elevator going back up into the kitchen" and paid him $100 "to keep his mouth shut." Fake image of Hawley with other man As Gera's allegations spread online, so did a fake picture of Hawley supposedly preparing to kiss a man holding a voice recorder. It appears someone fabricated the image by prompting an artificial intelligence tool to alter an authentic photo of a reporter speaking with Hawley in 2019. For further reading, we previously reported about another rumor involving Gera in which he made allegations about the vaccination status of Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. Gera said he cooked at an early 2022 event the senator attended that required unmasked attendees to provide a negative COVID-19 test.