People Who Can't Stand Guy Fieri

Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives was a huge win for the Food Network. Hosted by Guy Fieri, the successful show had a lot of behind-the-scenes drama that the show's creator, David Page, revealed to City Pages in a scathing tell-all. Most of the drama was centered on — you guessed it — none other than Fieri himself. According to Page, Fieri was a little-known chef when the show first aired. As his fame grew, he stopped returning Page's calls and began to avoid the man who had helped give him his big break. Eventually, Page was booted off the show entirely.

After Page was kicked off the show, he placed the blame on Fieri, who he claimed wanted him out. "Guy will say whatever he needs to say to prop up his image of Guy as a really nice guy," he said. "Everyone has to be part of Team Fieri. Team Fieri didn't feel any such reciprocal obligation."

We can't fully confirm that restaurant critic Pete Wells personally hates Fieri, but his 2012 review in The New York Times of Guy's American Kitchen & Bar in Times Square seems to indicate more than ambivalent feelings towards the chef. To say that Wells tore the restaurant apart would be an understatement. His review was addressed to Fieri himself, asking if he has ever eaten at his own restaurant.

"Did panic grip your soul as you stared into the whirling hypno wheel of the menu, where adjectives and nouns spin in a crazy vortex?" wrote Wells. It gets worse from there, as Wells proceeds to tear down various dishes and drinks, criticizing everything from the food itself to the names of the dishes. This is no impartial review. Only someone who truly detests Fieri would compare one of his drinks to "nuclear waste" and ask why the watermelon margarita "tastes like some combination of radiator fluid and formaldehyde."

David Chang is all aboard the Fieri hate train and has been bashing him since the 2000s. Chang has something of a cynical personality and detests everything from cupcakes to pretty much every single restaurant in San Francisco. On a panel with fellow Fieri Hate Club member Anthony Bourdain, Chang announced some of the things he dislikes at 2009's New York Wine & Food Festival (via Grub Street). Chang's animosity towards Fieri seems to have layers. On the surface, there's the obvious dislike for Fieri's personal style. He criticized Fieri's "f***ing sunglasses and that stupid f***ing armband," going so far as to say that if he ever dressed like that to "throw [him] down the stairs."

Chang also seems to resent Fieri's inexplicable success when more seasoned chefs have yet to get their big break. "Gray Kunz and Christian Delouvrier, the two greatest chefs in New York, are still trying to make a living," he said.

Fieri's stylist, Ariel Ramirez, hasn't gone on record with his dislike for his employer, but it's safe to say that, after your boss kicks you, you're going to harbor some ill feelings towards him. The altercation between Ramirez and Fieri isn't just tabloid fodder, either — there's video footage to prove it. TMZ leaked the tape in 2013 of Ramirez punching Fieri through the door of an SUV. According to TMZ's source, "it was just dudes being dudes," but does the "boys will be boys" mantra really hold up when one person starts crying? In the video, Ramirez openly weeps as his boss beats him up.

Supposedly, it was just a drunken brawl that got out of hand. Ramirez and Fieri had allegedly been drinking on a flight to San Francisco, which led to the fight. It's a plausible story, but we bet that Ramirez is still holding a grudge.

It's generally a wise idea to stay on the good side of your neighbors. After all, you have to live near them, and no one wants hostile eyes following you every time you walk down the street. In Fieri's case, unhappy neighbors led to noise complaints after he planned to open a wine tasting room on his property. His neighbors were not okay with Fieri's plans, and actually showed up to picket a public hearing that was to rule on whether or not to allow Fieri to open the tasting room.

Some of the neighbors' reasons for not wanting the room to open were hilariously snarky. "The applicant has thought of everything except a place for his noise," said Judy Tembrock (via GQ).

Another neighbor, Clay Jackson, complained that Fieri was already making enough noise at his property. "A race car was fired up next door by the applicant's staff with no warning," he said. "The noise very nearly seriously injured one of my show horses."

One family even had to move, saying that loud guests at Fieri's home left trash everywhere, forcing them to sell and get out of the neighborhood. Needless to say, the tasting room was not allowed to open.

This is another one of those allegations that you're going to have to take with a grain of salt, but if what Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, creator David Page said about Fieri's predatory ways is true, then women have plenty of reason to hate him. "Anytime any woman mentioned 'cream,' Guy went into a sexual riff," Page told City Pages. "When cutting the show, you had to tell the editors to watch Guy's eye line, because it's always on breasts." Talk about creepy. Fieri also allegedly liked to make poop jokes on set, making you wonder if he's a 12-year-old trapped in an adult's body.

Whether or not this is true hasn't been definitively proven, but all it takes is a whiff of sexual misconduct to ruin a chef's reputation. Other celeb chefs like Mario Batali and Guy Isabella are being forced to own up to their inappropriate behavior over the years. Could Fieri be the next person to come under fire?