Though early reports said the woman released the critters into the train car herself, a woman named Zaida Pugh posted a new, lengthier video of the incident on Facebook late Friday. The clip showed a young man clearly knocking a container of the crickets and worms out of her hands, sending it flying into the air.
Fusion, which noted that the video was “suspiciously well-produced,” contacted Pugh to ask her about it, and she admitted she was behind the whole thing.
“It was a prank,” she told Fusion. “I’m an actress. That was me.”
Pugh has gained notoriety for other viral stunts in the past, most infamously for a graphic video last year in which she pretended to stab a baby to death.
Although that video was a clear-cut hoax — in that no babies were hurt — the cricket-throwing incident was a little more nuanced. According to Pugh, the part where people push her and knock the bugs out of her hands - releasing them into the train car - was planned in advance. And her breaking down and trying to climb out the train windows was just acting.
But the crickets and worms — 300 of each, she told the New York Post — were real, she said. (She also said she did really urinate on herself.) In comments on her Facebook page, Pugh repeatedly refers to herself as “pranking the news” by getting them to cover the incident. But did she really?
If she actually unleashed hundreds of worms and crickets into the train car, it’s not really pulling one over on the news if they then report that a woman unleashed hundreds of worms and crickets into a train car. Whether or not her “breakdown” was genuine or just acting seems a bit secondary.
Ezra Mechaber, whose tweet about the “panic” on the train was widely cited by news outlets, maintains he was not part of the act.
Woman just let crickets out on the D Train as we went over the Manhattan Bridge. Panic ensued. Someone pulled the E-Brake. Stuck. New York.
— Ezra Mechaber (@ezramechaber) August 24, 2016
“Absolutely not in on it,” he told The Huffington Post in a Twitter message. “That woman’s intentions may have been a ‘prank’ but the fallout was very much real.”
Although Mechaber initially wrote that someone pulled the train’s emergency brake ― which stops the train in place ― the NYPD told Fusion that the brake was never activated.
Incidentally, another widely cited tweet mentioning “crickets in subway” around the same time as the incident turned out to be totally unrelated. The Twitter user later clarified that she works at a Subway sandwich store and there were some crickets in the building.
There are crickets in subway rn and they won't stop being loud af. Send help
— Emma☺ (@emmapapslinky) August 25, 2016
Psa: I work at subway and there were crickets in my store. Nothing exciting to see here folks sorry to disappoint 😶
— Emma☺ (@emmapapslinky) August 25, 2016
An anonymous police source also told the New York Post that Pugh could wind up facing charges for the stunt.
Pugh told the Post that she did it to raise awareness about “what homeless people go through and how people treat them.”
It’s unclear how acting like an exaggerated caricature of a person with a mental illness and getting some actors to pretend to attack you would help anyone who is homeless.
It also seems pretty mean to the crickets.
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