Asia’s butterfly stunt didn’t go to plan (Picture: VH1)

Normally, the RuPaul’s Drag Race finale leaves us gagging over the epic wig reveals and jaw-dropping stunts.

But the season ten finale has us gagging over an entirely different kind of death drop.

Warning: major spoilers ahead for the season ten finale of RuPaul’s Drag Race.

Finalist Asia O’Hara has issued an apology after her butterfly stunt during the sudden death lip sync went awkwardly wrong.

The 35-year-old was pitted against Kameron Michaels to make it to the final lip sync, with the queens given Janet Jackson’s classic song Nasty. Asia was adorned with colourful butterflies, and with massive containers strapped to her chest and boxes on her wrists, fans speculated that they had something to do with a butterfly reveal.

Viewers feared the butterflies were dead (Picture: VH1)

And they were right… sort of.

Asia opened her bracelets and the boxes on her breastplate and threw them into the air, hoping that live butterflies would flutter out.

However, the butterflies weren’t playing ball – and simply dropped to the floor, with many fearing the insects were dead. Cue one of the greatest reactions of all time from Monique Heart and Vanessa Vanjie Mateo:

Following the bemusing lip sync, Asia was eliminated, leading to Kameron entering the final lip sync. The Texan queen looked devastated as she sashayed away, and following the finale airing, she shared a statement on Instagram.

Asia wrote: ‘I just want to let everyone know how sad and heartbroken I am by the way my lip sync performance during the finale of RuPaul’s Drag Race turned out.

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.

‘I would like to publicly offer the entire world my deepest apology. It’s important that everyone knows that I would never purposely hurt any living being and have the utmost respect for all animals.

‘If you are unhappy with me, I understand. I have been unhappy with myself since that night but I’m going to do my best to make it right. Over the next year, my friends and I will be donating over 100 volunteer hours to the ASPCA, an organisation that has been dedicated to the fair treatment of animals since 1866.

‘I can’t apologise enough for what happened. I want my fans and the world to know that I’ll continue to be humble, own my mistakes, and lead with love and light.’

It turns out that the issue boiled down to the type of butterflies Asia used. She chose Painted Lady butterflies, which need to be transported in climate controlled conditions, and warmed up to fly away.

Asia told Entertainment Weekly: ‘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.

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‘But, as they warmed up in the stage lights during the break, they started to fly away!’

After Aquaria, Eureka and Kameron faced off in a three-way lip sync to Jessie J, Ariana Grande and Nicki Minaj’s Bang Bang, New York queen Aquaria was crowned America’s Next Drag Superstar and took home a cash prize of $100,000.

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