S Club 7 pop icon Jo O’Meara has revealed the nasty injuries she suffered after a soup recipe went very wrong.
The Reach hitmaker, 46, has been left with burns across her body, which forced her to dash to A&E in pain.
She later took to social media to showcase her bandaged stomach.
‘That’s what happened. That was me trying to make soup,’ she said in a video shared with fans as she twirled around, her whole midriff plastered up.
‘So I’ve come to the conclusion I can’t cook,’ she continued.
‘I shouldn’t be allowed to cook. I’m just not safe. I’m not safe in the kitchen; I’m not safe anywhere near the kitchen. And we know this now because I’ve tried every day since we got back from our holiday, and I can’t do it.’
Explaining exactly what went down, Jo recalled, ‘The little soup maker was on, the little Ninja,’ having felt inspired to give homemade soup a go after recommendations from her fans.
‘I thought, do you know what? Let’s just do the soup, because it’s easy,’ she added, laughing sarcastically.
Mocking how ‘easy’ it should have been, she continued: ‘I popped down A&E because I’d burnt myself to pieces.
‘Now I’ve got to go back every two days to get this dressing changed.’
Describing the consequences, she admitted: ‘I can’t tell you how much it hurt. It b****y hurt. Like, it really, really hurt.
‘I cried real water tears. It was terrible. Very sad.’
The star concluded: ‘It was quite an eventful day. I’m just glad that it wasn’t my face, ’cause it could have quite easily been my face.’
As for what her next culinary masterpiece might be, it’s fair to say that Jo won’t be offering to cook Christmas dinner this year.
‘I’m officially banned for life from the kitchen, and I’m never, ever cooking a thing again,’ she declared.
‘You’d be lucky to get a bit of toast out of me!’
The following day, Jo took to her Instagram Story with a snap of her bare tummy, showing the extent of the burns as her skin was red raw.
Fans came out in sympathy for her, but also quipped that she should, indeed, ‘stay out of the kitchen’ in future.
‘Awwww 😂 yeh maybe keep clear of anything in the kitchen !! Hope that heals quick’, commented @amandaw321.
@samjmurray77 added: ‘Ouch! I’ve done this, it will heal up. Take care x’
‘Uber eats is much more safer 😂❤️’, laughed @jodie_5x.
The Don’t Stop Movin’ vocalist is no stranger to a hospital visit, having spoken openly about her issues in recent years.
In May, Jo revealed that she had been admitted to hospital once more due to a flare-up with her back problems.
‘Back in hospital! The back is back! I didn’t expect to be in here today!’, she wrote alongside her post at the time.
The 00s entertainer has suffered from chronic back pain for over 20 years, having first injured herself while working on the S Club 7 film Seeing Double in 2002.
She’s had several surgeries to treat the condition and her ‘horrendous’ pain since then, which has also led her to cancel shows before.
Her last big op was in November 2022, when she had a disc removed, resulting in her pulling out of a Pride performance.
Jo is an original member of S Club 7, along with Rachel Stevens, Tina Barrett, Jon Lee, and Bradley McIntosh, who reunited for a tour in 2023 to celebrate 25 years in the industry.
In April that year, beloved Paul Cattermole died unexpectedly. This also led to Hannah Spearritt choosing not to rejoin the group.
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