Inside the searing, strangely wholesome world of competitive chilli eating

“I’m not like normal people,” declares Stephen Curgan, better known in the chilli-eating world as Fiery Redd. ​“Not many people can say they’ve achieved world status at something.” 

The 37-year-old corporate engineering manager from South Carolina currently holds the League of Fire​’s (LoF) World Champion Belt Title – the highest honour in competitive chilli eating. Last March, he travelled to Cape Town, South Africa and beat Gary ​‘Scorpion Slayer’ Conar, revelling in the rapturous applause as he hoisted the red-trimmed leather belt above his head.

Achieving such a feat means enduring roughly 10 punishing rounds of chomping down on the hottest chillies on earth. Bouts usually begin with Carolina Reapers – which measure around 1.8 million Scoville Heat Units (roughly 300 times hotter than a jalapeño) – before escalating to even more brutal chillies like Pepper X (over 2 million SHU), and sometimes spoonfuls of concentrated chilli extract reaching as high as 16 million SHU. 

During a match, competitors consume around 50 superhot chillies, many of which aren’t readily available to the public because of how dangerously potent they are. And to break a tie, the contest ends in a speed round, where whoever wolfs down the most peppers is hailed the winner. The LoF is the sport’s governing body, sanctioning professional matches and maintaining an international ranking system.

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Since becoming world champion, Stephen has successfully defended the title and cemented his place at the top of the world’s strangest, spiciest competitive sport. But on August 1 at the Detroit Hot Sauce Festival, he’ll clash with an emerging fan-favourite – Hungarian champion and three-time belt winner Janós Jakab.

So, Stephen’s training is well underway. ​“First, I’ll get a good burn going,” he says in a smooth Southern drawl. ​“I’ll buy the hottest peppers I can find and just sit down and eat. After an hour, once I’m sweating, my eyes are watering, my nose is running and my throat is swollen, I’ll practise speed eating. That’s the best way to get used to eating chillies fast in that state.”

But the sport comes with a serious occupational hazard: capsaicin cramps. Capsaicin, the compound responsible for a chilli’s heat, binds to pain receptors throughout the digestive tract, triggering violent muscle spasms as the human body tries to cope with what it interprets as a threat. 

Competitors have compared the pain to ranging from a heart attack to childbirth, with each successive chilli only escalating the intensity. ​“I’ve broken my femur before,” Stephen says, with subtle terror flashing across his eyes, ​“but those cramps are the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced.”

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To stave off the inevitable reckoning, Stephen – like all pro athletes – sticks to a strict nutrition plan, lining his stomach with ​“lots and lots of mashed potatoes” before every competition. ​“I need something heavy and starchy to clog the pipes and hold those cramps off for as long as possible.”

And as an extra precaution, once that final pepper has been choked down, competitors scatter to the nearest bin or bathroom to make themselves sick, expelling the capsaicin from their systems and hopefully shortening the hours of agony that may follow. That’s assuming the chillies didn’t make a surprise reappearance on stage – vomiting means instant disqualification. 

Stephen didn’t know any of this when he first started dipping his toes into chilli-eating in 2024. Filming himself at home, Stephen attempted spicy challenges such as the One Chip Challenge – chilli-flavoured crisps that are so hot buyers have to verify their age – and posted the videos online as proof of completion. He’d do it all on an empty stomach and then simply wait for the pain to arrive. 

“It’s torture,” he states bluntly. ​“The pain comes in waves. You’ll think it’s finally easing, then boom, it comes back even harder. In those early days I’d be up all night rolling around on the floor, moaning and groaning, almost wishing I’d die just so the pain would stop.

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Like Stephen, many of the sport’s biggest names discovered the scene through social media, which surged during the Covid pandemic. Socially isolated chilliheads filmed themselves tackling superhot chillies, gummy bears and tortilla chips and views jumped into the millions. With the League of Fire being founded just a year before lockdown in 2019, it used social media to publicise rankings, promote events and connect competitors across the world, turning casual viewers into active members of the community. 

From the outside, competitive chilli-eating can appear to be a spectacle of bravado: contestants flanked by flashy pyrotechnics while they scoff bright red chillies on a stage, sweating under spotlights. But scratch beneath the theatrics, its devotees point to feelings of empowerment and a clear demonstration of ​“mind over matter”. It’s the pride of refusing to quit when the burn has their bodies begging to surrender that has athletes hooked, and their fans in awe. 

“I really love the psychological aspect of the sport,” Stephen explains. ​“It shows you can achieve anything you set your mind to. I think pepper eating is a good way to test yourself and see how well you can set the physical aside and maintain focus.”

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Yet like many other competitors, Stephen developed this resilience long before picking up his first pepper. 

In high school, he dealt with depression, got mixed up in ​“the wrong crowd” and started taking drugs. He dropped out of university, aware that his low grades wouldn’t be worth much. But after a few years of working, he realised the potential he’d thrown away and wanted to get his ​“life together”. Stephen returned to school full time while working 12-hour shifts to support his family, determined to finish a degree in engineering.

“It was extremely taxing, mentally and physically, to learn advanced calculus and modern physics when running on basically no sleep,” he explains. ​“I’d wonder, ​‘Why am I torturing myself?’ But I’d tell myself, ​‘I’m not going to quit. I can do this.’ A spicy pain tolerance requires that same mindset.”

This show of ​“mental fortitude” is one of the reasons Shahina Waseem, the undefeated 97-time UK Chilli Queen, co-founded the League of Fire alongside her partner Paul Ouro and fellow British competitor Matt Tangent. After outgrowing the previously limited competition circuit, she wanted to build the chilli-eating scene into something bigger than simply novelty entertainment at food festivals. 

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Since its launch in 2019, the LoF has expanded internationally, hosting competitions across four continents, attracting sponsors and bringing together chilli growers, craft hot sauce makers and competitive eaters under a simple ethos: everyone is respected, recognised and welcome. 

Inclusivity, though, wasn’t always guaranteed back when Shahina was competing.

She joined the chilli world in 2012 and quickly became impossible to beat. Working as an interior designer, she spent weekends driving hundreds of miles between food festivals, collecting title after title. But as the wins piled up, so did the hostility. ​“Around my 40^th win, people were getting upset with me,” Shahina recalls. 

As a glamorous British-Pakistani woman, who’s never seen without eye liner and a fresh blow out, Shahina broke the mold of what a typical chilli-eating competitor looked like – ​“big burly men”. With very few women involved in the sport, she was underestimated by many.

“They were jealous and tried to stop me from competing because they didn’t like it that I was a petite woman of colour beating some white guy called Dave,” she claims. Shahina says that contest organisers would pretend there weren’t enough slots available or claim only local entrants were allowed – only for Shahina to watch her white friends take to the stage. 

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She nearly stepped away from the chilli world altogether, but decided to take matters into her own hands, channelling the same stubbornness that has brought her almost 100 victories, and founded the League of Fire. ​“Looking back, those difficult moments literally made me so determined.”

Seven years later, competitors like Stephen’s rival, Janós, describe the LoF as ​“an incredibly kind and welcoming” community. His journey into chilli-eating happened by accident when colleagues at his railway signalling technician job dared him to eat increasingly spicy foods. To his surprise, Janós could handle the heat well and started attending local chilli festivals to steadily ​“push my limits”. It’s more impressive by the fact that he’s ​“lost almost all of my teeth – not because of chillies but a condition I inherited from my father”.

Now, Merciful Death, a hot sauce made from Carolina Reapers grown at a local Hungarian chilli farm, has become his favourite condiment. ​“It used to bring tears to my eyes, but now I spread it on bread instead of butter,” the 33-year-old says. 

Janós quickly caught the attention of the LoF and was invited to matches all over Europe, such as Italy, Slovakia, and Germany – destinations that once felt out of reach. The organisation helped in part to fund the trips due to his humble background in a small village in Borsod County and slim wages. Growing up, Janós was ​“almost always the target of bullying” and struggled with loneliness. Now as a beloved underdog in the chilli scene. ​“Every competition means more new friends,” he explains.

And soon, he’ll be debuting in America for a trip he never imagined he’d make. ​“I won’t let you win, ​‘Fiery Redd’,” he says. Yet for all his determination to take home the title belt, there’s one treasured memory from his years on the circuit that means more to him than any victory.

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After a competition in Ipswich last year, Shahina and a group from the LoF took him to the coast in search of a chippy. It was the first time Janós had ever seen the sea. Transfixed by the seemingly never-ending horizon, Janós stripped down to his boxers and ran. Pebbles chattered beneath his feet as he sprinted past the others towards rippling waves.

“The moment I realised there was nothing between me and the water, I suddenly started running,” Janós explains enthusiastically. ​“I threw myself in and the sea immediately threw me back out – and even spat salty water into my mouth. I knew the sea was salty, but I had no idea it was that salty.”

He spent the rest of the afternoon letting the waves carry him back and forth from the shoreline. Watching him, Shahina was close to tears. Thanks to the LoF, chilli-eating competitors take home more than just a belt and a burning mouth. ​“It’s not all about winning,” says Shahina. ​“It’s the sense of community where you feel supported, where you belong.”

Hannah Bentley is a freelance journalist. Follow her on Instagram.

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