On the newest edition of Hot Ones, David Blaine made a torn-off corner of a playing card reappear inside a Carolina Reaper, and then he did a magic trick. Somehow, with host Sean Evans tearing up and turning purple, Blaine proceeded to eat his Carolina Reaper like it was a wrinkled baby bell pepper. Stuffing parts of playing cards into produce is a time-honored magical tradition, but casually eating one of the hottest peppers on the planet is a genuine miracle.
The preceding interview involved Blaine delving into the obsessive nature of illusionists, his professional origin story, and the elaborate fun of his profoundly miserable endurance stunts. That includes the pressure of holding his bowels when he spent a week buried in a glass coffin in full view of the audience.
It wasn’t until they hit 642,000 Scoville that Blaine showed that the heat was getting to him, but that shouldn’t be too surprising considering he makes a living pushing his body to the limit and swallowing frogs in order to regurgitate them later at parties. The trick there is not covering the frog in Unique Garlique sauce.
In fact, eating progressively spicier pepper sauces is probably the least dangerous gestational trick he’s ever done.