A married Alabama preacher and Mayor k!lled himself on Friday, Nov. 3, two days after being outed as a transgender who had a secret life he shared online as a "transgender curvy girl."
F.L. "Bubba" Copeland, who was the mayor of tiny Smiths Station as well as the pastor at First Baptist Church in nearby Phenix City, shot himself around 5 p.m. in front of sheriffs who were following him.
Copeland was a married father of three.
His suicide came after police were asked to do a welfare check and began tailing his car.
"He exited the vehicle, produced a handgun, and took his own life," the sheriff's office said.
Copeland's suicide comes after he was exposed in 1819 News, a news site once owned by the conservative think tank, the Alabama Policy Institute, that described Copeland's secret life online as a transgender woman under the pseudonym Brittini Blaire Summerlin.
"Brittini" described herself as a "transitioning transgender curvy girl that loves smiling, clothes, and shoes!"
One of Brittini's social media profiles showed Copeland wearing different women's outfits, including bedroom photos of himself in women's underwear.
1819 News also reported that Copeland could be seen wearing some of his wife's clothes in his posts.
Copeland referred to himself as a "thick transgender woman" and encouraged other trans women to go on hormone replacement therapy.
He also posted transgender porn as well as transgender fiction and erotica that he apparently wrote, according to 1819 News.
The report was published on Copeland's 62nd birthday.
Reacting to the expose, Copeland told 1819 News that his online alter ego was a harmless "hobby" that did not go beyond his home.
"Just my wife knows about it," Copeland said. "It's a hobby I do to relieve stress. I have a lot of stress, and I'm not medically transitioning. It's just a bit of a character I'm playing. ... I don't go out and seek solicitation or anything like that."
"What I do in private life has nothing to do with what I do in my holy life," Copeland told 1819 reporter Craig Monger. "Does this have any effect on me being mayor, that I sometimes put on a dress or sometimes put on makeup? Does that have anything to do whatsoever with me being mayor or being a pastor?"
He appeared to handle it well after the exposé was published on Wednesday, Nov. 1.
That night, he delivered his regular sermon at the First Baptist Church of Phenix City and briefly addressed the scandal.
"I have been an object of an internet attack," Copeland said. "An article that was written about my capacity as the mayor [and] capacity as a pastor. The article is not who or what I am."
He downplayed the online material, calling it an "attempt of humor."
"Yes, I have taken pictures with my wife in the privacy of our home in an attempt of humor because I know I'm not a handsome man nor a beautiful woman either," Copeland continued. "I apologize for any embarrassment caused by my private, personal life that has come publicly."
In 2019, Copeland led the city through recovery after a horrific tornado hit the nearby town of Beauregard and killed 23.
Copeland met with then-President Donald Trump at the time, who'd come to observe the devastating fallout of the storm.
"I always say, 'We're Mayberry 2023,'" he said about Smiths Station. "It really is like everybody knows your name. You know, everybody dies famous in a small town. That's what it is. It is Friday Night Lights. It is mama's apple pie. Our community is very, very low crime, very low drug abuse. Our number one problem is suicide. It is sad. I think a lot of it has to do with the military. I think some of it has to do with social media and the reality of that. That's the number one problem we have."
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