Jeremy Piven Explains Mercury Poisoning on Good Morning America

Jeremy Piven sat down for his first interview since his sudden departure from Broadway play Speed-the-Plow last month, and despite widespread snickering that his "exhaustion" was really brought on by too much plowing-the-snow, the Entourage star is sticking to his mercury poisoning story. In the exclusive chat with Diane Sawyer, Piven maintains that illness caused by excessive seafood consumption brought him to his knees, and the condition deteriorated to the point where "that final Sunday, um, I had problems spatially, I was losing my balance and my memory. The lights were too bright, I couldn't get enough oxygen, I ended up passing out in my place when I got home... I'm a very clean person, I kind of grew up macropsychotic—macrobiotic, I call it macropsychotic." After brushing off rumors about his hard partying lifestyle ("If I had a glass of wine, it was too much"), Piven declares he hasn't had fish in five months, and wraps with a plug for ocean preservation website Blue Voice.

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By John Del Signore in Arts & Entertainment on January 15, 2009 11:30 AM

Comments [rss]

Pythagoras

Laugh it up, suckers. You're so warm in your cocoon of self-imposed ignorance, you all(the wisecrackers) probably think you'll get super powers from chemical exposure. Think again. Look at the obesity of America for something right in your face. And you willingly PAY for the crap that passes as food.

rdsizzle

Defintetly too much coke for Piven. But I do believe that when you tell a lie, you must carry it out to the bitter end. Good job Ari.

ides_of_march

The mercury excuse will be a more legitimate one in a few years when the millions of compact flourescent bulbs mandated by law start leaking their mercury into the earth and oceans and start really poisoning the fish stocks. The insane part is that it's being done to save the environment.

NannyState

I didn't know blow monkeys ate seafood.

Kyle T

Phil, what are you doing here? You're partied out, man. Again.

rbeshenk

@edEx: Because he's a cokehead.

Spirit of 76

So first he supposedly eats too much fish and now he claims he hasn't touched it in months. Has he never heard of good things in moderation?

ed_Extinct

why is it so hard to believe that he was poisoned by mercury?

Guest

Maybe this is why those in theater back in the ancient times of Greece and Japan wore masks when they performed... to deflect all hateful, envious, jealous mockery away from them.

zodak

yes, a lot of haters here.

i don't think he would risk his career like this if it weren't true.

Politburo

The timeline doesn't add up to me. Obviously I'm no doctor and I know nothing about mercury poisoning.. but if he stopped eating fish 5 months ago, and only got sick last month, something appears, well, fishy..

However, looking at wikipedia, it appears this kind of delay is not out of the ordinary, though the one cited case of a five-month delay was a different kind of mercury poisoning.