This is the moment an influencer finds he has bitten off more than he can chew when he lands in hospital with medics removing dozens of agonising fruit spines from his tongue.
Brazilian social media star Dellano Cruz was filming himself tucking into a plateful of local pequi fruits in an exclusive restaurant in Caldas Novas, Goias State.
But, apparently unknown to him, the fruit hides a painful secret under its sweet pulp.
Inside its delicious-looking segments are hundreds of razor-sharp barbs, which are a protection against it being eaten in the wild.
In-the-know fruit fans scrape the pulp away carefully with their teeth before they get to the spines.
But, reports local media, Cruz, 33, popped the whole thing into his mouth and began chewing.
Video footage from the meal on 14th December shows that within moments his tongue was covered in the painful spines.
At first, he is seen trying to pull them out with his fingers and then he borrowes a pair of eyebrow tweezers.
Finally, he is taken to hospital where a medic painstakingly removes 56 of the tiny spikes with a pair of surgical forceps.
Cruz later called the drama his ‘Pequi Saga’ and said on 20th December: “I was very calm but I got a little tense when the waiter said I would have to go to the doctor.
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‘However, I remained calm and serene.”
Cruz later confessed that he’d rushed the dish.
He said: “I liked it so much but I found the process slow. So I took two good bites, chewed it well and didn’t feel the thorns.”
Cruz who has 104,000 Instagram followers, added: “When I had a soda, I just looked at my friend and said, ‘I think my tongue is full of thorns’.
“At the hospital, people called me a tourist. Everyone treated me very kindly. They talked a lot and had fun.”
In a reaction to the mixed response of social media users to the video, Cruz said: “Guys, just want to make clear that I loved the pequi.
“I just got carried away and ignored its thorns.
“The good thing is that I’ve learned to eat the right way.”
One user named as ‘amandax1’ said: “People think it’s wrong for a restaurant to serve without explaining. Here in Minas Gerais, it is common for restaurants to warn you. It was the restaurant’s mistake.”
‘danielaarauj9’ added: “I didn’t know this fruit, but after watching this, I will be careful when I travel there! Thank you Dellano for being our guinea pig!”
And ‘isa.siilva95’ joked: “I already want to put it in the Christmas dessert for my gossipy aunt who spent the whole year talking about me.”
