Sue Perkins tried to expand her mind with a hallucinogenic brew – but just ended up vomiting for 15 hours and sitting under a donkey admiring its 'beautiful teeth'.
The former Bake Off host, 53, sampled the San Pedro cactus for her Netflix show Perfectly Legal, in which she tries things that are banned in the UK.
She turned down the popular psychedelic ayahuasca after hearing horror stories about trips. But after necking a San Pedro concoction on a hilltop in Bolivia, near capital La Paz, she was shocked to find out it is 'the twisted cousin of ayahuasca'.
Sue said: “I noticed more of the cactus going into the mug than I’d agreed but I drank it anyway. I said, ‘At least this isn’t ayahuasca,’ and the shaman said, ‘This medicine is worse.’ There followed 15 hours of vomiting. If I hadn’t taken Imodium, sweet Lord...”
Sue admitted her reaction was the 'absolute opposite' of what bosses were hoping for and at one point she was so freaked out she booted a medic in the privates for trying to do a Covid test.
Sue said: “They expected me to go, ‘Look at these flowers’ and skip around. Instead, they got non-stop retching and crying. I was very present in the awfulness of it. At one point I thought I saw microscopic ants eating at my wrist.
“And I thought I saw children that were my children, but I hadn’t had children.
“Then I sat under a donkey and said, ‘Look at its beautiful teeth.’”
Talking on Jack Whitehall’s Safe Space podcast, Sue said she was finally taken back down the hill and hit a hotel’s buffet.
She said: “I stank, I had matted hair, google eyes. I was aware people were looking at me with a mixture of fear and revulsion.
"I ate an entire circular creme caramel and I felt so much better.
“Ever since then, I would say I have felt a deep sense of calm, just to bring it round to a positive.”
