A "strange" food combination once loved by the late Cilla Black was "her first taste of sin" and led her to confession.
Cilla Black is remembered for many things, from being a best-selling British female recording artist to presenting popular shows like Blind Date, Surprise Surprise and more. In recent years, many clips of Cilla - who died in 2015 - have resurfaced, reminding fans of her numerous iconic moments through the decades.
One that may immediately spring to mind is when Cilla Black outed an undercover journalist on national television for "cheating" one of her Blind Daters of a chance at love in 1997. But another clip, unearthed from a BBC food documentary, also got fans talking.
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In the video, uploaded to YouTube and shared widely on social media, we learn how Cilla got her "first taste of sin." The late Blind Date presenter is seen eating an orange - that has an Oxo cube rubbed over it - on BBC series Eating With…, which first airied in 2006.
At the time, Cilla explained how as a child, she was eager to eat both items - so decided to the merge the two. In the clip, Cilla said: "I helped myself to an orange, and I helped myself to an Oxo cube.
"I guess I was so eager to eat the orange and the Oxo that it all blended into one. And I thought ‘oooh, I like this’." Cilla then shows the concoction to the camera and says "doesn’t that look fabulous?" before taking a bite for herself.
But, the video soon takes a dramatic turn as Cilla, who was raised Catholic, feared for her soul after enjoying the combination on a Friday, a day it would be considered sinful to eat meat. With its dramatic music, a serious voiceover says "the sweet and savoury combination of orange and Oxo was Cilla's first' taste of sin" and we also see a reconstruction of Cilla confessing as a child.
A neighbour is said to have told a young Cilla to go "straight away to confession," in order to take Holy Communion that Sunday. But after being asked the "fatal" question "what did you do when you realised you were eating meat?" by her priest, Cilla lied and said she stopped eating the orange and Oxo.
Cilla said: "To actually lie in the confessional box… because what’s the point in confessing if you’re going to lie? So I went back, same priest, and it was just a simple 10 Hail Marys and twice around the block, and I was absolved."
In the May 2020 lockdown, the clip resurfaced on Twitter and got the whole internet talking. Now with over 20.5K likes, @itsmatthooper tweeted the two-minute 20-seconds video with the caption "this video about how cilla black used to eat oranges covered in Oxo does not end where you expect it to."
Do you remember this clip of Cilla? Let us know in the comments section below.
And a number of accounts were quick to comment on Cilla's "strange" concoction. @millierosecooke said: "Her mind... Stunning."
@stevief403 said: "This is not what I expected to wake to. I don’t think I’ll ever remember Cilla Black the same ever again." @tom_aspaul tweeted: "Yes I am trying this tomorrow."
@tommytinker1991 wrote: "I don’t remember this in the Sheridan Smith drama." @peterholt99 wrote: "What the hell is this!?! So, so confused."
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@CoreyKitchener wrote: "This is insane!." @PaulaBenson66 said: "That’s the weirdest food combination I ever heard of - is it a thing? I mean do others do it? Lol. Miss her xxx."
@sortedfood tweeted: "Now this is a strange food combo.... not one we would have thought of." And @keavaoloan tweeted: "I feel like my soul has been altered by this information."
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