Following a tweet that drag performer Robbie Turner posted on April 15th RuPaul’s Drag Race fans and alumni seemed to be thrown for a loop with speculation. Robbie stated in a series of tweets that he had been in a car accident where the Uber driver was killed, but no confirmation of such an accident was ever confirmed.
Many fans called him out for being a compulsive liar that has in the past fabricated outlandish stories that have proven to be false while others were sympathetic to Robbie and wished him a speedy recovery.
After reaching out to Robbie and his representation, Instinct never received any comment.
Soon after everyone’s wig was flipped, Queer/Bar in Seattle, where Robbie was the resident host, announced that Robbie Turner would be taking some time off to focus on his mental health.
Since the infamous tweets that shook the drag world, Robbie has been silent. Many fans have claimed that they have been blocked for posting negative comments on his social media, but not a single response–until now.
Robbie Turner just posted on Instagram a long apology to various entities that comes right after the release of his Entertainment Weekly interview:
Just today, 12 days after the online scandal, Entertainment Weekly has released an interview with Robbie Turner that talks about what transpired. I’ll quote some of the responses here, but in brief, yeah–the car accident never happened!
Robbie shares with EW that he was in an altered state of mind because he believes something had been slipped into one of his drinks and that he had slipped in the shower. The entire car accident and going to the hospital after was a very vivid dream that he perceived to be reality.
Robbie shares:
I woke up with bruises on my body, and I woke up with a headache, so my initial reaction was I thought I had a concussion. I was worried because I was alone… I wasn’t going to be seeing anyone for a few days. I usually try to rest and sit still after a weekend of shows. And I more or less woke up worried that I had a concussion, [so I] made a scheduled post for when people would be waking up Sunday morning… I was already falling asleep and was panicking… I did wake up with very large bruises and a headache, and I’ve always had this irrational fear of concussions.
After days of poking around and sleuthing to figure out everything I had gone through, days later I saw footage of me coming home, getting out of a car, and getting into my apartment okay. What [I] think happened is that I was slipped something [in my drink], because I didn’t drink that much that night, and [that I] slipped and fell in the shower. The hat I was wearing is completely bent and gross, so we think I hit my head in the shower, got out of makeup, went to bed, and had a very vivid and ridiculous dream.
Robbie continues to share that he never thought to contact the authorities or to gain confirmation that the accident had ever occurred, but he did go to the hospital and was informed he hadn’t been there as he previously thought.
After doing my own sleuthing I went to the hospital and got an affirmation that I had not been seen on Sunday like I thought I had, which was horrifying and embarrassing… And so I spent the next few days resting and trying to find out [what happened] from the police and the hospital and everything was turning up into a weird dead end and almost becoming comical to the professionals that I was seeing. I thought I was losing my mind…. A friend of mine who is a therapist came over and told me that I should get a psych evaluation for the whole scenario, so I spent the next few days after that speaking to crisis counselors, and when I was finally seen by a psychiatrist. I talked to them about everything that has been going on, even prior to the accident, because it’s just been kind of a nightmare in my personal life. There have been many deaths and a lot of loss, and the social worker and psychiatrist [said] it sounds more like I had a mild mental break, and it was triggered by slipping in the shower and being slipped something [in my drink].
Robbie also touches on the response he received and the online bullying from fans and followers that really turned blew the whole situation out of proportion.
There’s absolutely a larger bullying community now, and I think people like to use the term “calling out” as a cover, as a guise to what they’re actually doing, which is bullying someone. I personally don’t read a lot of the comments, and the things that I have seen have been screen shots that a friend will send… I don’t want to see any of it. I’m already fully aware of what happened and what’s happening. But it is interesting to see that side of people that I’ve worked with in the Drag Race community. It’s like, well, I hate to point it out, but no one is perfect and everyone makes large mistakes that they regret whether it be on a public level or not… Unfortunately, I don’t think people have control, and they start reading one thing and turn it into a giant campaign to basically eviscerate someone when they don’t actually have 100 percent of the proper information.
Then, when asked about how he felt regarding other Drag Race alumni who commented about the whole incident, Robbie had some choice words about his ‘sisters’:
Not one of the girls that you mentioned reached out to me once, so I’m not completely surprised that those are the types who said something because they’re trying to remain current, and talking about somebody else’s drama gives them material, I guess. I’ve just never been that person because I don’t see the point of kicking people who are down because it’s an unfair advantage.
But do you think Robbie was trying to stay current? Because regardless of what happened, I think it worked!
And does Robbie have any regrets with respect to this incident?
I’m a little horrified that I did publish it in the first place, and looking back it’s always easier in hindsight… but fear I think is a powerful motivator, and I was so fearful that I was not going to wake up, so I made a plea for help, and if you read the original post it was clearly scrambled… reading it now I’m like, oh my goodness, why did I post anything? I should have called someone to come over [and] take me back to the hospital if I was having an issue.
Read the full interview HERE
Based on this interview, we now understand that the car accident DID NOT occur straight from the drag queen’s words. So now, have we reached a point in this story where we should leave Robbie alone? He is going to take some time off to be on antidepressants and work on his mental health. I mean, it seems it was really doing a number on him.
It seems the great drag mystery of 2018 has been solved, but do you believe Robbie Turner’s explanation for the whole thing or do you chalk it up to, as Robbie called it, ‘trying to stay current’? Or should we all be more sympathetic now that he has come clean about the fictional accident? Or was it a gag that spun way too out of control from which he could never return?
