Your fav could never intentionally hurt a living creature, but a failed onstage stunt now has Drag Race season ten queen Asia O’Hara apologizing for the fate of a number of butterflies. O’Hara, who was one of the show’s four finalists headed into Friday night’s finale, had planned to release the insects from her costume during her final lip sync for her life. Unfortunately, the butterflies never took flight. “Despite months of research and rehearsing with a professional company, what I hoped would be an amazing and safe display of optimism, and a surprise for everyone including production and the network, it did not go as planned,” O’Hara said in a statement posted to Twitter. “I would like to publicly offer the entire world my deepest apology. It’s important that everyone knows I would never purposely hurt any living being and have the utmost respect for all animals.”
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, O’Hara says she suspects the butterflies’ failure to launch was the result of their climate-controlled shipping conditions. “They need to warm up to a certain temperature in order to fly away,” she explained. “I, of course, rehearsed it at home several times and it worked, but [the finale was] a different place and a different environment, and I don’t think the contraptions were warm enough to wake the butterflies up. But, as they warmed up in the stage lights during the break, they started to fly away!” In addition to her apology, O’Hara promises to donate over 100 volunteer hours to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
