Cricket kook: Subway feud just big ‘act’
A BROOKLYN woman came forward Friday to say she was the one who let loose a pack of crickets on a crowded subway car – and that it was all a prank.
Hours after Facebook user Zaida Pugh posted video showing the moment when live crickets and worms went flying on a rush-hour D train Wednesday, Pugh admitted to setting up the stunt.
“It was a prank, I’m an actress. That was me,” she told the website Fusion.
In the video — filmed from several angles suggesting the whole thing had been carefully choreographed — Pugh said she posed as a crazed woman trying to sell a bucket of bugs as the train rumbles over the Manhattan Bridge.
A seemingly fedup straphanger, apparently in on the caper, smacks the container out of her hand — sending the critters flying and commuters scattering for cover. Another man in a Giants jersey, who Pugh said was also an actor, is later seen in the video punching the disturbed woman.
The woman can be seen urinating on herself and then attempting to vomit during what looks like an ensuing meltdown. Cops eventually took her to the hospital for a psychiatric evaluation, and released her.
One rider pulled the emergency brake during the panic, stalling the train above the East River. Pugh said she aimed to raise awareness about how people treat the homeless. She was unapologetic to commuters stuck in the subway with no air conditioning for nearly a half-hour.
“Of course they’ll be angry with me, but I guess I’m just doing me. I’m waking people up with my shows, my acts,” she told Reuters.