On Tuesday 31 March, Christopher Joell-Deshields was fired from his role as the boss of Pride in London, London’s biggest LGBT event and one of the largest pride events in the world. He had been under investigation since September 2025, with Pride in London ultimately determining that their former leader had presided over a “culture of bullying”. In addition, the 55 year old was accused of having siphoned off over £7,000 of vouchers intended for volunteers in order to purchase luxury colognes and Apple AirPods for himself.
During the six months he was under investigation, Joell-Deshields was paid the full monthly instalments of his £87,500 salary. Yet findings made by The Londoner suggest that this wasn’t the only money he was making. And nor was Pride in London the only pride organisation Joell-Deshields presided over in the capital.
After sleuthing through a baffling array of AI generated videos, social media channels and an eBay account, we found evidence linking Joell-Deshields to a new pride brand — one that is almost entirely generated by AI, appears to have invented affiliations with established pride events and pressures visitors to its website to donate. It’s called Capital Pride London.
At first glance, Capital Pride London appears to be a genuine — if somewhat vague — event celebrating London’s LGBTQ communities. Muscular, glitter-covered men in tight shorts herald it as “the newest voice for LGBTQIA+ visibility and rights in the UK capital”. The website offers a lengthy corporate manifesto, detailed diversity and inclusion policies, and guidance on how disabled people can safely attend a pride event with “clear signage, well-trained staff, and volunteers to help guide you.”
But on closer inspection, all of the text and images on the site appear to be generated by AI. "We're not just organising an event — we're building a movement,” the site chirps, each section adorned by baffling AI imagery. A wheelchair-bound man wearing a durag in the pink, purple and navy colours of the bisexual flag welcomes you to the accessibility section of the site. And towards the bottom of the page, a large red button encourages you to donate.
Trying to make sense of it all, I entered my email address into the website. Over the following days I was sent multiple requests to donate to “Your friends at Capital Pride London”, still with no indication who was behind the site.
On the “why donate” section, users are told that their money will go towards “delivering events like Winter Pride, Pride in the Park and Write to Unite”. But when we looked into these organisations, we could find no association with Capital Pride London. Pride in the Park may refer to Pride on the Park, a fundraising event for Brighton & Hove Pride. Winter Pride UK was a real event, but it hasn’t run since 2023. Write to Unite, on the other hand, is a Women’s writing programme run by Kim Douglas, a writer and editor from Grand Rapids, Michigan. None of these organisations responded to requests to clarify their involvement with Capital Pride London.
At this stage, it seemed clear to me that Capital Pride London was masquerading as an established LGBTQ events company to field donations. But there was no indication as to who was behind it — and the website appears to have been deliberately set up to mask its founders’ identities. The “about us” section is an impenetrable thicket of vague and unattributed AI platitudes; no names appear anywhere on the website. The site itself was created in October 2025 under a VPN, Perfect Privacy LLC, a company based in Florida that allows users to disguise their IP address.
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