It was one of those things that made even the most jaded New Yorker squirm: Hundreds of insects—a mini-plague—let loose in the middle of a crowded subway car by a woman reportedly trying to sell the bugs.
But Fusion has learned from the woman herself that the entire bizarre episode was apparently completely staged.
According to the New York Post, the strange incident took place on the D train at around 6PM on August 24, when a woman, reportedly trying to sell both live crickets and worms, was jostled by a group of teenagers, and proceeded to have a complete meltdown, during which the insects were released into the subway car. Part of the incident was caught on Instagram:
What followed, one straphanger told the Post, was “pandemonium.”
In the chaos following the biblical-bug bomb, the subway car’s emergency brakes were reportedly engaged, leaving the train motionless, without air conditioning, and full of bugs. At some point in all this, the woman who released the bugs proceeded to urinate on the floor, prompting passengers to take a page from the bugs’ book, and swarm to the other end of the subway car.
After approximately half an hour, the train began moving again. Upon reaching its next stop, the original insect owner was removed from the train by emergency services.
But that’s not the end of the story.
On Friday, an 18 minute video began circulating on Facebook, which depicted the entire incident—including the moment when the insects were released, first by the woman, then by another passenger who hits the container of bugs out of her hand. Unlike the blurry Instagram footage, this video is clear, and contains shots from multiple angles. It’s the sort of video which gives the impression that maybe this wasn’t such a spontaneous event, after all.
Intrigued, we called Zaida Pugh, the woman who posted the video, to find out where the footage came from. After speaking for some time, Pugh admitted finally “‘It was a prank, I’m an actress. That was me.”
The entire episode, she said, was a performance art piece meant to highlight the way people with mental and emotional health issues are treated.
“I did this to show how people react to situations with homeless people and people with mental health,” Pugh explained. “How they’re more likely to pull out their phone than help.”
Pugh, 21, claims to have done over 50 similar “pranks.”
“I hate doing auditions, and I really like the reactions,” she explained. “I like it when it goes viral and people react and think.”
In fact, this is not Pugh’s first brush with viral fame. In 2015, she posted video of herself to (pretending to) stab a baby to death in order, the video claimed, for the child’s father to see. The footage was viewed over a million times, and yeah, it’s pretty horrible.
