The self-proclaimed performance artist who unleashed hundreds of crickets and worms on panicked straphangers in a stalled subway car last week was arrested and in police custody Tuesday — after crying in a Facebook video that “people probably want me dead.”
“I deserve it because I was wrong,” said Zaida Pugh as she was being walked by cops from the Transit District 34 station around 3:30 p.m.
The 21-year-old prankster was busted by the Brooklyn Warrant Squad earlier in the day on obstructing governmental administration and reckless-endangerment charges after her bizarre stunt on the packed D train Wednesday, sources told The Post.
In purple hair, black sneakers and a black sweatshirt, Pugh repeatedly apologized for causing such a ruckus — and even claimed she was done pulling stunts in public altogether.
“I’m really sorry about everything,” she said. “I promise [I won’t do it again].”
Authorities had issued a warrant for Pugh’s arrest Monday afternoon after she admitted to the media that she had been trying to go viral in the attempt to bring attention to the plight of the homeless.
“It was to show how homeless people are treated,” Pugh said while being led into an unmarked police vehicle.
Police officials blasted the Brooklyn “actress” on Tuesday, saying she had wasted a lot of people’s time and money — and was her own worst enemy for blabbing about her antics.
“We thought she was an emotionally disturbed person, we took her to the hospital,” said Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce. “She went out and made further statements to the press that she’d done this on purpose. She put people at risk, [they] could have had heart attacks. People could have had all kinds of issues, [been] emotionally scarred from that. She’s going to be charged with a misdemeanor. If she speaks to us, that’s great. If she doesn’t, that’s great, too.”
Hours before she was taken into custody, Pugh posted an emotional Facebook Live video in which she claimed she was in fear for her life because so many people were upset about what she’d done.
“There are people that really hate me … probably want me dead,” she said. “I don’t want that. That’s not the type of attention I wanted … I just really had a dream and I wanted it to go far. I wanted to spread messages out there, and I didn’t want it to happen like this.”
Pugh went on to say that she felt like her “dreams for being an actress or whatever” were “basically over.”
“That’s going down the drain,” she said. “People who know me know I’m not a person who talks down like this, but it is, it is over.”
She also claimed she felt completely misunderstood.
“Every time I try to explain myself or what I do, nobody cares to listen,” Pugh whimpered. “All my life I’ve been trying to be something bigger … I just always wanted to be somebody … but after this, I don’t even know what’s gonna happen to me. I walk outside and there’s people really after me, like want to kill me … and I never wanted something like that. People who know me know I am a loving person.”
Throughout the 40-minute video, Pugh continued to apologize for her antics — saying she had been “blinded” by her thirst for fame.
“I am so, so sorry,” she said. “Just please forgive me. Whoever is angry, if you can’t forgive me now because you’re still upset, please just eventually in the future, forgive me. I was wrong … I was so, so hungry to get my work out there and follow my dreams and get my family out the hard life and do something to make my parents proud.”
While the video seemed sincere, it is highly possible that it is just another of Pugh’s sick pranks.
The young woman has tricked millions into thinking her clips are authentic — including one in which she pretended to kill her boyfriend’s baby to get back at him.