RIP: RuPaul Drag Race Season 2 Star Dies

Vuzu's guilty pleasure show and surprise hit RuPaul's Drag Race mourns the death of one its stars. Antoine Ashley, better known to Drag Race fans as Sahara Davernport passed away on September 30th.

Fans and colleagues took to Twitter to express their grief at Davenport’s passing in the following days after news broke last week.

His boyfriend and season three Drag Race contestant Karl Westerberg, known as Manila Luzon, simply wrote: ‘I love him so much.’

RuPaul twitted: ‘Shocked & heartbroken over @SaharaDavenport. Never occurred to me that we'd ever lose one of my girls. I see them as immortal.’

Numerous other Drag Race alums also expressed their shock via social media platform.

Davenport, originally from Gaithersburg, Maryland, was a classically trained dancer who first became interested in drag performance while studying at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where he earned his bachelor of fine arts degree in dance.

She decided to move to New York City, telling the New York Times,

'I had to build my name here by doing talent nights, talent competitions and networking and meeting all the working girls and figure out how to work this animal of New York City. The New York scene is so much bigger than in Dallas. 

‘In Dallas it’s just a strip. It’s like, a block. What has helped me: There aren’t a lot of girls who dance, who are as refined in dancing. That is what draws people to see me. The dance, and the prettiness.'

She made a name for himself after getting a part on ABC's One Life to Live, A&E's 15 Films About Madonna and Voom HD's Magnificent Obsessions.

Davenport also appeared in music videos, including David Guetta and Chris Willis' Getting' Over.

However, her big break came when he had made it onto season two of Drag Race, which aired in 2010 in the states and earlier this year in South Africa. She came in seventh, but his time on the show helped jump-start a successful though brief career in music.

She went on to release two singles, Pump with Me and Go Off, which rose to No 35 on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Songs chart.

Details of Sahara's cause of death has not being made public yet.

RIP: Antoine "Sahara Davernport" Ashley.

Catch RuPaul's Drag Race Season 4 on Vuzu (DSTV channel 116), Mon to Wednesday at 21h30