Rita Ora was replaced with a mannequin after dropping out of last week’s episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK.
The 30-year-old was reportedly booked as a guest on the episode but failed to turn up at the last minute after allegedly having a disagreement about her entourage before filming.
A source told The Sun: “Everyone on set was anticipating Rita’s arrival but, when she didn’t show up, producers had to use their heads and came up with the idea of decorating a mannequin.
“Surprisingly it worked out OK and became a running joke”
Due to the complications of the coronavirus on filming, producers were forced to replace Rita with a mannequin called “Mickayyy”, inspired by Danny Dyer’s EastEnders character.
Rita pulled a last-minute no-show after a reported disagreement about her entourage
The episode was themed around the popular British soap, with the queens acting out a parody called BeastEnders and playing characters based on Kat Slater, Dot Cotton and Phil Mitchell.
The other judges’ interactions with the mannequin brought many laughs, and it was seen flirting with the drag queens, especially Bimini Bon-Boulash after her turn as Skat Slater.
The mannequin was based off of Danny Dyer’s Eastenders’ character
Rylan Clark jokingly played on the mannequin’s likeness to him, tweeting: “Thrilled to finally be asked to be a guest judge on @dragraceukbbc #humbled”.
But some of the fans were disappointed when the “the most iconic guest judge in Drag Race herstory” they were promised, turned out to be Mickey the mannequin.
Rita Ora has previously been a guest on the US version of Drag Race
“The fact that we’ve all spent the week predicting the likes of Jessie Wallace, Letitia Dean and ADELE for who the special mystery guest judge might be and it turned out just to be… a wooden mannequin,” said one fan.
Another fan joked: “#CanceltheBBC for that little stunt ya pulled there”.
A third complained: “Can’t believe we were promised the most iconic guest judge in drag race herstory and we got a mannequin.”
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Rita had previously been a guest judge on the US version of the show in 2018.
On the day the episode aired she took to Instagram to post a promotional image to announce she’s dropping an acoustic version of her latest EP, Bang.
The singer posted a picture of herself with bleach eyebrows and wearing a figure-hugging black bodysuit with cut-outs to emphasise her curves and show off a hint of underboob.
She captioned the stunning pic: “#BANG ACOUSTIC EP. FRIDAY. I’m overwhelmed with how incredible you’ve all been since I released #BANG!!
“I’m so excited to share with you these more stripped down versions of the songs we recorded!! Can’t wait for you to hear!!”
Daily Star has approached Rita Ora’s representation and Drag Race UK for comment.
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
