Jeremy Piven was Poisoned by Sushi, at Least According to Actor's Equity, but Broadway Producers Disagree

Jeremy Piven left the Broadway show "Speed the Plow" two months earlier than agreed upon with the producers of the show because he said he'd been poisoned by mercury from eating too much sushi. Piven supposedly spent several days in hospital, recovering from mercury poisoning from sushi, but the producers of "Speed the Plow" didn't believe him. So, a mediator from Actor's Equity was called in and the results of the mediation were just announced. Jeremy Piven did have mercury poisoning from eating too much sushi. But is it really true?

As someone who eats tons of sushi ( I live in Thailand, where it's very cheap) and as someone who also has a lot of Japanese friends who eat sushi, I find it highly unlikely that Jeremy Piven had mercury poisoning from eating sushi. After all, why is it that a whole nation of Japanese eat boatloads of sushi every year and don't seem to complain of mercury poisoning, yet several American actors have decided they were poisoned by sushi? Sure, there's mercury in sushi, in fact, there's mercury in a lot of foods, but you'd have to eat a couple of fishing boats of the stuff to really have it have an impact on your health.

Many doctors say, yes, it is possible to get mercury poisoning from sushi but you would have to eat sushi at least twice a day for many years, for the mercury to build up in your body enough to poison you. Jeremy Piven says he ate sushi twice a day for a long time but, again, that's pretty hard to believe. Anyone can have a food obsession and eat a certain food several times a day for a prolonged period of time. That prolonged period of time however is likely to be several weeks and not several months or years. The taste buds and the body just get bored with the same food and eventually people move on to eating something else.

For Jeremy Piven to blame sushi for leaving "Speed the Plow" early seems a little fishy. Producers of the Broadway show doubted his claims were valid and filed a grievance with Actors' Equity, who in turn finally sided with Piven because of the reports from a couple of doctors. Now, anyone who's called in sick to work for a few days knows you can get a doctor to pretty much sign off on anything if it will shut you up and get you out of their office. Jeremy Piven isn't known as being one who keeps his mouth shut, so you draw the conclusion.

But, the moral of this story seems to be this. If you want a few days off work or want to get out of something without illegally breaking a contract, eat a bit of sushi and then blame the sushi for giving you mercury poisoning. After all, if Jeremy Piven can get away with it, why not you?

SOURCES:

Reuters - Jeremy Piven cleared in Broadway sushi dispute, and BBC News - Actor Piven cleared in sushi row