What was the first rehearsal with the snake like? Is that when the bite happened?
No, the Wednesday before the VMAs I had a full day with the snake and I was terrified. I woke up sweating. But when I met him, I overcame one of my biggest fears.
I started talking to Rocky like he was a human – ‘Hey Rocky, how are you doing?’ I was doing everything in my power to make myself feel comfortable. I felt like, if I gave off the energy of me being afraid then he’s going to feel that energy and something bad is going to happen. I asked the trainers every question possible I could think of, to educate myself about snakes.
But then…
I didn’t have the snake on the next day of rehearsal so I kind of missed Rocky actually, and I couldn’t wait to see him again.
On Friday, the day that it happened, I was practicing the tricks with another contortionist and coming up with an alternate poses, and the snake was fine. We did it about four times before the incident happened and he was gripping me the way he was supposed to, but I felt like he was getting tired and didn’t want to hold on much.
The trainers told me the only reason a snake would attack, is if they felt like they were at harm, so I tried to readjust to make sure that he felt safe on me.
But right when I did one trick, I guess he must’ve felt I wasn’t holding onto him, so he went ahead and took a nice little bite out of my left arm.
That’s pretty terrifying. How did you react?
Thankfully, when it happened I didn’t try to take the snake off me and scream and throw my arms up in the arm. I stood still. I went into complete shock. I was trying to focus on my breathing, instead of getting the snake off, because he was still wrapped around me. I thought that if I controlled my breathing and fear of what just happened he would calm down and let go of me, but he didn’t.
He was holding onto my arm for dear life. He definitely had his mouth around my arm for a good 45 seconds, but to me it felt like an hour.
Was Nicki nearby when the bite happened?
They sat me down on one of the props and one of the first people I saw was Nicki Minaj in front of me, making sure that I was okay. And that was the one thing that I really appreciated because some people can’t handle blood or an incident like that – especially when it’s their big performance –
so the fact that she was one of the first people that I saw, I was really thankful.
Then I got a phone call, saying that Nicki didn’t want to replace me (I was worried they would for my safety), but she still wanted the snake.
Yikes. What was rehearsal like with the second snake?
Archie was smaller and a hair thinner than Rocky. I told the trainer that I just needed to know where his face was at all times – especially if he comes near my face or neck —
and literally 30 seconds into the snake being on me, he went ahead and bit the trainer standing next to me.
He was still on my body when he bit her. After that happened, they took him off me faster than I can even remember. At this point, I was thinking, ‘I don’t know if I can do this, it’s the second time that it’s happened.’
The Viacom safety guy hit up the executive producers to let them know what
happened and they finally said no to the snake.
You must’ve been incredibly relieved.
I think the performance would’ve been a major hit if the snake was in there, but at the end of the day I’m just glad that they were thinking more about my safety.
http://www.mtv.com/news/1918503/nick...ake-bite-vmas/
i shortened it, so click for the full article
Queen!
I can't believe there was two different snake bites