Clueless actress Alicia Silverstone worried fans on Monday night after she posted a video of herself eating a mystery fruit that fans warned in the star’s comments could be “poisonous.” The star didn’t post anything on her social media accounts for nearly 24 hours after that, prompting more concern, but on Tuesday she returned to Instagram to tell fans she is “alive and well.”
“Don’t worry,” she added. “I didn’t swallow.”
In the original video, Silverstone can be seen standing on the street in the UK, where she says she found the unidentified berry. “I’ve discovered something that I can’t figure out what it is and I need your help,” she says, panning her camera to potted plants that look like they belong to someone’s fenced-in front yard.
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“It was on the street and we were discussing whether this was a tomato or not,” she says, revealing that she’d already “bit into it.” She shows the camera the innards of the little red bulb. “It’s definitely not [a tomato] because look at these leaves,” she says. Despite not knowing what it is, Silverstone thought it a good idea to still consume it, apparently—though she admits, “I don't think you’re supposed to eat this.”
Fans in the comments of her posts expressed concern that she may have eaten a Jerusalem cherry—a houseplant that when consumed could be toxic and potentially fatal to humans.
The cause for concern seemed warranted. Potential effects of Jerusalem cherry poisoning include diarrhea, fever, and hallucinations, according to the Queensland Poisons Information Centre, and although death is uncommon, a hospital visit can sometimes be necessary.
Silverstone has previously been outspoken about her distrust of vaccines and even tampons, which she documented in her book The Kind Mama: A Simple Guide to Supercharged Fertility, a Radiant Pregnany, a Sweeter Birth, and a Healthier, More Beautiful Beginning. In it, she calls vaccines shots of “aluminum and formaldehyde” and suggested that tampons cause infertility. She felt so strongly about her anti-vax stance that she endorsed (and provided literal campaign cheese for) Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has been a consistent amplifier of vaccine misinformation.
But apparently those fears about putting foreign substances in her body did not stop her from eating unknown fruit from the street.
