*Asha Gilbert expected her return to social media to mark a fresh start. Instead, one frightening accident placed her before an audience of millions almost overnight.
Gilbert had been away from social platforms for years to protect her mental health. She had only recently opened a new Instagram account when a video of her July 6 pole dancing mishap exploded online.
“I had an Instagram for two weeks,” she said in an interview with PEOPLE. “I had just decided to get back on social media after years of a hiatus, just for my mental health.”
The widely shared video shows Gilbert exercising inside her Houston apartment when the pole comes loose and strikes a fire sprinkler. Water immediately pours through the home as she and her dog move to safety. Watch the wild moment in the clip below.
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The video has since drawn more than 12 million TikTok views. Gilbert said she was unprepared for the scale of the attention and the cruelty that accompanied it.
“If I’m being honest, I cried every day looking at comments,” she said.
The accident caused enough damage that Gilbert moved on July 10. She credited her sober community and friends from the local dog park with helping her settle into a new home.
“Thanks to my sober community and my dog park community, I was able to get into my place and unpack pretty quickly,” she said.
Gilbert also pushed back against assumptions that pole dancing was her profession or that the workout was inherently sexual.
“This was something I was doing in the comfort of my home,” she said. “I was appropriately dressed for a workout.”
She described pole dancing as “one of the toughest workouts you can do” and said the activity is “overly sexualized, in my opinion.”
She may avoid another home setup, but she has not abandoned the activity.
“I love the art of movement,” Gilbert said. “I’m definitely open to doing pole dancing in a studio and learning more about the art, because it’s so beautiful to me.”
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