Anne Hathaway’s Hot Ones plans have been postponed by someone with more authority than Sean Evans: her doctor. The Oscar winner, who is expecting her third child with husband Adam Shulman, was advised to avoid the show’s increasingly spicy chicken wings because they could potentially trigger early labor.
“Spicy foods impacted me in the past, let’s just say that,” Hathaway told E! News at the New York City premiere of Verity on September 29. “And so it kind of seemed like the right thing to do. Why take any unnecessary chances?”
The 43-year-old did, however, leave room for a late-pregnancy change of strategy. “But if the baby is overdue, I might be giving Sean a call,” she joked.
Why did Anne Hathaway skip the Hot Ones challenge?
The appearance would have neatly connected to Verity, the thriller adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s novel. Hathaway plays bestselling author Verity Crawford, who makes a fictional appearance on the Sean Evans-hosted series in the movie.
Hathaway had hoped to complete the real challenge while promoting the film, which opens in cinemas on October 2. Pregnancy made that plan rather less straightforward.
“I thought that I was gonna be able to do the Hot Ones challenge to do press for this film because it just made sense,” she said during an interview with Talk of the Townsends, posted to Instagram on September 25. “But then I got pregnant and my doctor said I couldn't do it because I might go into early labor.”
Medical advice therefore defeated promotional symmetry, which is probably for the best. Hathaway did eat some of the actual wings while filming Verity, but she has not attempted the programme’s full progression of sauces.
“I still haven't done the gauntlet yet. I'm not sure when that's gonna happen,” she said. “Maybe next year.”
Who stars alongside Hathaway in Verity?
Hathaway appears in the psychological thriller with Dakota Johnson, Josh Hartnett and Ismael Cruz Córdova. While the spicy-wing challenge is off the schedule for this press tour, Hathaway said working and promoting the film with Johnson had given her something better than escalating levels of capsaicin: a new friendship.
“I love her,” Hathaway said. “She’s the most adorable, amazing, surprising person.”
Her praise became more elaborate from there. “It’s not even that she marches to the beat of her own drummer,” Hathaway added. “It’s like she’s hearing the coolest music ever and you’re just like, I just want to hear the music that you’re hearing. She’s so real, she’s so fantastic and I’m just so happy that we became friends.”
Hathaway and Shulman are already parents to two sons, Jonathan, 10, and Jack, 6. For now, her third pregnancy means no full Hot Ones appearance during the Verity campaign. Sean Evans may still want to keep his phone nearby, just in case the baby ignores the release schedule.
