A promotional trip onboard US Navy stronghold USS Kearsarge turned sour for Halle Berry on Thursday when she was hit with a bout of food poisoning.

The actress dined on shrimp onboard the ship, harboured in New York for Fleet Week, before meeting and greeting sailors as part of a publicity stunt to promote new film X-Men 3: The Last Stand when she started feeling ill.

She says: "I ate some shrimp on the boat and I'm not allergic to shrimp but I guess I am - bad shrimp.

"The funny thing was I went out and I wanted to shake as many hands as I could and I wanted to see as many people, so I'm shaking hands and all of a sudden my head feels like it's on fire and I notice some of the guys kinda looking at me funny.

"They must have been thinking, 'Well, up close, she is busted,' because these things started to pop up on my face and my body started to itch.

"I went down to the infirmary and I got a big whopping shot of Benadryl and it put me out. And then I went to sleep for two hours.

"So that was my experience… I was in some admiral's room, knocked out."

But the boat trip wasn't a complete bust for the sexy actress. Before she fell ill one hunky sailor proposed to her: "I think it was serious. That was great."