Fans of Alicia Silverstone have been in an an uproar since Monday night when the “Clueless” actor shared a video of herself on a street in the U.K., picking a mystery fruit from some stranger’s front garden, then eating the red bulb, even though she admitted she didn’t know what it was while saying, “I don’t think you’re supposed to eat this.”
But late Tuesday, the vegan actor resurfaced, safe and sound, reports TMZ.
Silverstone had been missing from her Instagram and TikTok accounts, leaving fans concerned that she poisoned herself, especially after plant-savvy followers said the mystery fruit appeared to be a Jerusalem cherry — an ornamental houseplant that can be toxic when ingested and potentially fatal to humans.
Adding to people’s alarm is the fact that Silverstone’s representatives had not responded to inquiries from the Daily Beast and other outlets about whether she’s OK.
But on Tuesday she posted on her Instagram Story: “Alive and well! Don’t worry… I didn’t swallow 😉😛”
The drama started with a video posted Monday, in which Silverstone can be seen standing on a street in the U.K., where she said she found the unidentified cherry-tomato-sized berry on a bush. “I’ve discovered something that I can’t figure out what it is and I need your help,” she said, panning her camera to a potted plant that looks like it belongs in someone’s fenced-in front yard.
“It was on the street and we were discussing whether this was a tomato or not,” she said, revealing that she had already “bit into it.” While holding up the innards of the little red bulb, she said, “It’s definitely not (a tomato) because look at these leaves.” Despite not knowing what it is, Silverstone decided to still eat it.
Perhaps Silverstone thought she was doing a replay of a couple TikTok videos from June when she brought viewers into her garden and picked small, shiny orange kumquats off a tree. In one video, she ecstatically bit into one, chewed and smiled happily. “Is somebody gonna match my freak?” she asked. “Getting excited about eating the fresh fruit they grow in their own back yard.”
But as person after person responded to Silverstone’s tasting of the mystery fruit, they emphasized that it’s never a good idea to eat fruit from an unknown source. Some also pointed out that it’s rude to eat fruits or vegetables from someone’s garden without permission. “Imagine looking outside your window and Alicia Silverstone is eating your plants,” one person said.
More seriously, amateur gardeners online applied Google Lens, an image recognition app, to the plant Silverstone had consumed and raised concerns that it was solanum pseudocapsicum, a member of the nightshade family that is commonly known as the Jerusalem cherry, or the Madeira winter cherry.
According to Medline, consumption of the Jerusalem cherry “can be very dangerous.” Plantura said the poisonous alkaloid in the fruit is “not life-threatening” but it can cause “extremely unpleasant” symptoms.
Poisoning from the fruit mainly affects the gastrointestinal and central nervous systems, with the onset of symptoms starting 8 to 10 hours after consumption, Medline said. Symptoms include abdominal pain, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, fever, headache, hallucinations, slowed breathing, paralysis and shock. People who ingest the plants should seek medical attention immediately.
On social media, Silverstone likes to promote her vegan diet and lifestyle and often posts videos of herself sharing recipes or trying fresh, healthy food. So it’s probably not surprising that she would be curious about a pretty, unknown fruit she encountered on a walk. But her curiosity should not have extended to actually putting the fruit in her mouth, with followers saying it was pretty, yes, “clueless” for her to eat something from an unknown source.
The Daily Beast argued that it actually was surprising that the actor put something unknown into her body, given that she’s 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, Silverstone called vaccines shots of “aluminum and formaldehyde” and suggested that tampons cause infertility, the Daily Beast reported. She has become so committed to her anti-vaccine views that she became one of the first celebrities to endorse the presidential candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent anti-vaxxer who has become known for disseminating vaccine misinformation.
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