Why pregnant Anne Hathaway wasn't allowed to do Hot Ones

Anne Hathaway had hoped to do something rather unusual while promoting her new film Verity.

The Hollywood A-lister had her sights set on taking on the notorious Hot Ones challenge for real.

There was just one problem: she’s pregnant, and her doctor was not prepared to take the risk.

If you’ve not seen Hot Ones, it involves celebrities trying to eat increasingly hotter and hotter wings.

Hathaway, who is expecting her third child with husband Adam Shulman, revealed that she had been planning to appear on the popular YouTube series as part of the film's publicity campaign.

Instead, her doctor advised her not to take part because of concerns that the spicy challenge could potentially cause complications.

"But then I got pregnant, and my doctor said I couldn't do it because I might go into early labour," Hathaway explained on the Talk of the Townsends podcast.

The star is currently heavily pregnant and her doctor advised against the challenge (Photo by Emma McIntyre/FilmMagic)

It is an especially frustrating twist because Hot Ones actually plays a role in Verity.

Hathaway plays Verity Crawford, a successful author, and the film includes a fictional appearance by her character on the spicy interview show.

Hathaway had apparently wanted the real-life version to form part of the promotional tour, effectively blurring the line between the film and its publicity.

For the scene itself, however, Hathaway did get a taste of the real thing.

She ate the first three wings before production switched to fake ones.

The actress has yet to experience the full ten-wing challenge outside the film.

"So I still haven't done the gauntlet yet," she said. "I'm not sure when that's gonna happen. Maybe next year."

Her disappointment seems to stem partly from the fact that she wanted her first Hot Ones experience to be genuine.

Anne Hathaway had hoped to appear on the eating challenge show, hosted by Sean Evans (Photo by Chance Yeh/Getty Images for HubSpot)

Hathaway compared the idea of doing the challenge for the first time while playing a character to having a first kiss on screen before ever experiencing one in real life.

"You don't want your first kiss ever in your life to be like an on-screen kiss," she said, explaining that she would rather experience something physically for the first time without simultaneously having to perform it as a character.

The decision also makes sense within the wider circumstances of Hathaway's pregnancy.

She announced in June that she and Shulman were expecting their third child, joining their two sons, Jonathan and Jack.

Hathaway has continued working and promoting her films during the pregnancy, but the Hot Ones challenge presented a rather different proposition from a conventional interview or red-carpet appearance.

The show's format is deliberately demanding: celebrities answer questions while eating increasingly spicy chicken wings, with the heat building throughout the ten-round challenge.

There’s been tears, spice in the eyes, and even people being sick from the heat.

That leaves Hathaway with an unusual piece of unfinished business.

Her fictional counterpart has already survived Hot Ones, but the real Anne Hathaway has not.

Until then, Verity has managed to give her a shadow of the real thing, but it’ll have to do for now until baby arrives.