Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

Drag Race's Asia O'Hara Spills The Tea About Those Dead Butterflies In Tell-All Interview

Drag Race's Asia O'Hara Spills The Tea About Those Dead Butterflies In Tell-All Interview
(OsnapitzChandler/YouTube)

Spoiler alert! If you haven't watched the 10th season finale of RuPaul's Drag Race, you may want to chasse away.

You could say finalist Asia O'Hara gave it her all in terms of creativity. The 35-year-old has proven throughout the season that she is a force to be reckoned with on the runway with her eye-popping, provocative looks.

Sadly, her lip sync for life didn't take flight the way she had hoped. So what happened?





Being one of the older contestants and admittedly not the strongest dancer among her competitors, Asia knew she had to soar above the competition to stand out from the herd.

She told Entertainment weekly about her failed final performance in which her glam army of butterflies failed to take flight.

I wanted to create a moment that was unforgettable, a moment that people would think, "Oh my God, that's one of the greatest things I've ever seen." The competitor in me is always thinking about how I can eliminate doubts in anyone's mind that I'm the best person on the stage in the moment.





In a competition where you can never be too ambitious, Asia wanted to secure her place in the annals of Drag Race history for being a visionary, a risk-taker, a walking wow-factor. So she kept her gimmick a major secret until the reveal.

In my head, the butterfly release was going to work out perfectly. I didn't share my ideas with anyone — including my boyfriend — because I've learned that it's hard to explain to people what I see in my head, and also I wanted it to be a surprise to everyone and I wanted a genuine reaction. It just didn't work out.





What she envisioned in her head didn't fly well in execution. It was all about temperature.

I used what are called Painted Lady butterflies, and going west across the continental divide, they have to be kept cool — basically in hibernation or asleep — so they don't stress. They need to warm up to a certain temperature in order to fly away. 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!



Fly my pretties.(OsnapitzChandler/YouTube)





EW asked what was going through her mind the moment she realized her winged friends weren't going to flutter away.

So, I opened the first one and the butterflies kind of looked at me like, is it that time? I thought there was going to be a warning! In that moment I knew, okay, it's not going to go the way I planned and that it was probably my last hurrah. But, I continued to open the other three, thinking the ones on my chest were maybe going to be warmer. It just was not the case, but you know, I wasn't going to just stand there and fold my arms and say I was done.




She explained she wasn't reckless in her preparation as she respects the life of "everything that draws breath and would never purposely hurt a butterfly or any animal." She did her research on how to properly handle the butterflies and rehearsed with handlers who specialize in the act.

As you know, however, that moment did not go as planned and I would like to publicly offer the entire world my deepest apology.



Are they dead?(OsnapitzChandler/YouTube)



In fans' eyes, she won.


So what was her takeaway from the experience? Not relying on temperamental beings to elevate a performance.

The pressure of needing to do well in that moment overshadows normal judgment… the second I saw the first one not take flight, it was like, I should have known not to gamble such a large opportunity on something as temperamental as a butterfly.




H/T - YouTube, Twitter, EW

More from Trending

Screenshot of Prince Harry; Donald Trump
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert/YouTube; Win McNamee/Getty Images

Prince Harry Just Took A Hilariously Brutal Jab At Trump During Surprise Appearance On 'Colbert'

Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, joined late-night host Stephen Colbert as a surprise for his opening monologue on Wednesday evening, and mocked President Donald Trump while he was at it.

Colbert was in the middle of ribbing the Hallmark channel and its string of royally-themed Christmas TV movies this year when he joked about how no one just "runs into a prince at their job." But then in walked Harry, who said he thought he was auditioning for a Christmas-themed Hallmark TV movie.

Keep ReadingShow less
Screenshot of Donald Trump
@atrupar/X

Trump Dragged After Making Ridiculous Claim About Randomly Finding Billions On The 'Tariff Shelf'

President Donald Trump was criticized after he claimed to reporters this week that officials in his administration suddenly found $30 billion they "never knew existed"—located on what Trump referred to as the "tariff shelf."

Tariffs are a tax on imported goods, usually calculated as a percentage of the purchase price. While tariffs can shield domestic manufacturers by making foreign products more expensive, they are also used as a tool to penalize countries engaged in unfair trade practices, such as government subsidies or dumping goods below market value.

Keep ReadingShow less
food prep
Katie Smith on Unsplash

Professional Chefs Share The Top Mistakes Average Home Cooks Make

With the expansion of cable television and then streaming services, a number of competition shows featuring amateur home cooks. Shows like Master Chef and The Great British Bake Off garnered huge followings and spawned numerous global and domestic spin-offs.

The food produced by these amateurs is beyond the talents of even some professional chefs. But what about the average home cook? What can they learn from the professionals?

Keep ReadingShow less
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images

RFK Jr.'s HHS Blasted As CDC Panel Considers Dropping Life-Saving Hepatitis B Vaccine For Newborns

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's vaccine advisory panel, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), met Thursday for the first of two days of discussions about childhood vaccine schedules and recommendations.

The panel focused on the hepatitis B vaccine and plans to vote on Friday whether to continue recommending it be given to all children at birth or to recommend something entirely different. The panel previously tabled making a decision on infant and early childhood hep-B vaccination in September.

Keep ReadingShow less
Screenshots from @monicasanluiss's TikTok video
@monicasanluiss/TikTok

Bride's Friends Surprise Her With Montage Video Of All Her Exes At Bachelorette Party—And People Are Mortified

While Jenny Han's novel To All the Boys I've Loved Before was a major hit, and even became a great film success in 2018, not everyone's married to the idea of reconnecting with their exes after the relationships end.

It might be nice to imagine staying friends after the relationships, imagining our exes missing us or regretting losing us, or even giving us an apology for the things they did wrong. But most of us pine for this for a little while, realize it's all a fairy tale, and push past it to better things and new love.

Keep ReadingShow less