A white Republican official tweeted that he's a 'black gay guy.' That was only the beginning of a confusing Twitter drama that now involves Patti LaBelle's nephew.

• Dean Browning, a white former Republican commissioner of Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, sparked a viral news cycle on Tuesday after he tweeted that he is a "black gay guy" who supports the president.
• Browning later said he meant to attribute the statement to another man, who he said reached out to him earlier in the week with the message.
• That man, it was later revealed, appears to be singer Patti LaBelle's nephew, Byl Holte, who regularly posts misogynistic and otherwise offensive messages on Twitter and often responds to Browning's tweets.

Dean Browning, a white former Republican commissioner of Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, tweeted on Tuesday that he is a "black gay guy" who supports President Donald Trump and dislikes former President Barack Obama.

That was only the beginning of a drama that riveted Twitter on Tuesday evening with its twists and turns, ultimately ending in the suspension of one Twitter account believed to belong to the singer Patti LaBelle's nephew, William Holte, also known as Byl Holte.

It all began with Browning's tweet: "I'm a black gay guy and I can personally say that Obama did nothing for me, my life only changed a little bit and it was for the worse," he wrote in response to one of his own tweets. "Everything is so much better under Trump though. I feel respected - which I never do when Democrats are involved."

Browning, a former Republican candidate for a Pennsylvania House seat, deleted his post after other Twitter users began to draw attention to it. In a subsequent tweet, he claimed the message was an attempt to quote a real Trump supporter who'd reached out to him and that he'd forgotten to attribute the quote to the man.

"Regarding the tweet that is going viral from my account — I was quoting a message that I received earlier this week from a follower," Browning tweeted on Tuesday afternoon. "Sorry if context was not clear. Trump received record minority votes & record LGBTQ votes. Many people won't say it vocally, but do in private."

A few reporters pointed out that an unverified pro-Trump Twitter account, @DanPurdy322, the owner of which describes himself as "black and gay," has replied to a host of Browning's tweets since the account was created last month. The user had also retweeted Browning. There were widespread suggestions that Purdy's account might be run by Browning.

Later on Tuesday evening, the Dan Purdy Twitter account posted a video showing a Black man claiming that he was actually Dan Purdy and that he had sent Browning the message. "Not a bit. Not a sock puppet," he wrote in the video's caption. "My name is Dan Purdy, and I am indeed a gay Black man," he said in the video.

Complicating things further, it soon became clear that Dan Purdy was an alias — one of many believed to be used by William "Byl" Holte, Patti LaBelle's nephew, as several Twitter sleuths using open-source investigation techniques found. LaBelle adopted her nephew when her sister, Jacqueline Holte, died in 1989, Vulture reported.

The man who claimed to be Dan Purdy and Holte appear to be the same person. In an interview with The Morning Call, Browning confirmed that Holte was using Dan Purdy as an alias.

Holte has a nefarious online past that includes a Medium blog calling the #MeToo movement the "greatest display of female weakness ever."

Soon after the Dan Purdy account posted the video, Twitter permanently suspended the account for violating the platform's rules, a spokesperson confirmed to Insider. The spokesperson could not elaborate on which rules the account had violated, but the platform prohibits impersonation "that is intended to or does mislead, confuse, or deceive others."

Insider found a Facebook page belonging to Holte, who lives in the Philadelphia area, that had the same avatar as the Dan Purdy Twitter account. Insider sent messages to Holte on Facebook and LinkedIn. A phone number listed for him by Spokeo, a people-search platform that aggregates publicly available data, was no longer in service.

In his interview with The Morning Call, Browning said he and Holte, a supporter of his political endeavors, have spoken on social media in the past. "We decided this is the best way to put an end to this, particularly after the tweet I put out with some clarification didn't seem to do much good with the angry mob," Browning said of the video.

Browning did not respond to Insider's request for comment.