“I was scared and stressed”: Drag Race’s Briar Blush opens up after collapsing on the runway
Drag Race's latest eliminated queen has revealed the truth behind her terrifying incident on the main stage.
Briar Blush has recounted the terrifying moment she fainted on the RuPaul’s Drag Race runway.
In episode four, the remaining 10 contestants were challenged to create mashups of two legendary red carpet looks alongside their closest friend in the competition. Blush, teamed with Juicy Love Dion, had to combine Lil Nas X’s iconic pink 2020 Grammy outfit with Rihanna’s yellow 2015 Met Gala gown.
On the main stage, Dion’s look earned praise from the judges, which included rotating judge Law Roach and guest star Annaleigh Ashford. Blush, on the other hand, received mixed feedback. Well… “mixed” might be generous: Roach’s critiques were, let’s say, scathing.
After the comments, Blush stumbled into Dion and then passed out. She was taken away by medics and, upon her return, had to lip-sync for her life against Kenya Pleaser to Kylie Minogue’s ‘Lights, Camera, Action’. The latter was deemed safe, while Blush became the third queen to sashay away.
In her exit interview with Entertainment Weekly, Blush opened up about the moment, recalling Michelle Visage’s critiques and shutting down rumours that Roach had caused her to faint.
“Halfway through Law’s critiques — Law shreds, I wasn’t perturbed, that’s what Law does — I remember getting warm in the head,” she said.
“I blinked, and thought Juicy Love Dion was just looking at me sideways. I didn’t realize I was on the ground. I was mad for a second. I looked around and saw queens on stools and Ru screaming for medics. I didn’t realize I’d fainted.”
When asked about claims from fellow contestants, including Athena Dion and Vita VonTesse Starr, that she might have faked the moment, Blush said she “couldn’t” hear them as she was too “stressed and scared.”
“I remember thinking, "What the f**k is going on?" I was confused, dazed, and so tired,” Blush continued, adding that she and the queens are “all good about it now”.
Following her elimination, Blush was diagnosed with pneumonia. “I was told I had walking pneumonia for weeks, which later turned into sepsis. The pneumonia happened during the show, sepsis happened after the show. I got very sick after filming. Athena told me I looked worse, so I went back to the doctor and ended up having sepsis.”
“They treated me for the wrong kind of pneumonia. I wasn’t getting much better, and I think the first doctor I saw was kind of a quack. I went back to the doctor because I felt worse. It started feeling kind of grim. When I went back, it became more dire. I was in the hospital with sepsis.”
Thankfully, Blush revealed that her hospital stay was short: “Sepsis is easy to treat, but it was a two-to-three-day stay.”
You can read Briar Blush’s exit interview with Entertainment Weekly here.
On next week’s episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race, ‘Rate-A-Queen’ returns as the season 18 queens show off their charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent in the staple talent challenge.
