The high-rolling, spotlight-filled world isn’t quite as shiny as Good Charlotte once suggested — and once you learn what this TV set code word stands for, it’s easy to see why.
From the outside, productions can look effortless and polished. On set, though, the day-to-day realities are a lot less glamorous.
In fact, there’s even a discreet phrase performers use to flag a very specific, very human need — without announcing it to everyone within earshot.
Makeup expert and RuPaul’s Drag Race alum Trixie Mattel recently explained exactly what that phrase means, and how it’s used behind the scenes.
Known for being candid with her audience — whether she’s talking beauty, awkward moments, or what work is really like — Trixie didn’t hold back when discussing the unspoken rules of reality TV.
This time, she highlighted the simple way cast and crew communicate when someone needs a bathroom break.
In a candid YouTube video reflecting on her experiences, she described how much she had to learn once she started working in TV environments.
“I had to learn on my feet what exactly a TV set was,” the star said.
“Did you know on television when you have to pee… you say, ‘I have to ten-one’, ’I’m taking her to ten-one, ’‘she’s going to ten-one,’” Trixie revealed, adding: “It’s a more elegant way of saying ‘go pee.’
“And on a TV set when I was 24 years old, my instinct was to go, ‘will someone take me to pee?’ And they’d be like, ‘you mean ten one?’”
She explained that she wasn’t familiar with the jargon at first, and had to quickly adjust — even repeating it back while still unsure where it came from.
She admitted at the time she wasn’t so clued up on the lingo, and so would ‘be like, “right 10-1.”
“I have no idea where that came from,” Trixie confided in the video. “If you guys want to look it up, or some of you in the audience watching this knows what that means, 10-1 it means go pee.”
And while needing the bathroom is obviously normal, she also pointed out that long shoots — especially when performers are in drag all day — can make even basic comfort breaks much harder to manage.
According to Trixie, the combination of heavy costumes, long hours, and limited opportunities to step away can sometimes lead to unfortunate situations.
“This one I’m going to be vague about, but we’re in drag for long days, and drag is very taxing on the body, and sometimes people don’t get to pee,” she said. “And sometimes pee happens… that’s all I’m going to say.”
“I’ve never peed myself on Drag Race,” she made she clear up, but went on to claim she knows ‘it’s happened’.
The star said: “Whether or not people have said it happened, I think people have peed their pants and it hasn’t shown on camera, so no-one knew.”
So much for the glamour.