The Biggest Scandals To Ever Hit The Food Network

Ina Garten, host of Food Network's Barefoot Contessa, comes off as the sweet grandmother everyone wishes they had. She revealed a not-so-nice side, however, in 2011 when a child requested to meet her through the Make-A-Wish program. Enzo Pereda, a 6-year-old battling acute lymphoblastic leukemia, watched Garten on TV while he was sick in bed, and had been dreaming of cooking a meal with her for years. 

Pereda's family organized the request to meet Garten through Make-A-Wish, but was turned down because she was busy on the road, publicizing her new book. A year later, Pereda made the same request and was again tuned down due to Garten's busy schedule. His family wrote about the incident in a now-defunct blog, which is when the media picked up on the story.

After the news got out, Garten did some damage control, inviting Pereda onto her show. It was too little, too late. The Peredas rejected Garten's offer, saying that young Enzo had "moved on" and would instead fulfill his wish of swimming with dolphins.

A sexual harassment scandal in 2017 threatened to put an end to Batali's career when four women accused him of inappropriate touching. Batali didn't deny the allegations of harassment, which spanned 20 years, saying "there are no excuses." In a statement to Eater, he added, "That behavior was wrong and there are no excuses. I take full responsibility and am deeply sorry for any pain, humiliation or discomfort I have caused to my peers, employees, customers, friends and family."

The effect of Batali's apology was diminished when he used his situation as an opportunity to publicize his website. In an emailed newsletter where he again apologized, Batali added a link to his Pizza Dough Cinnamon Rolls which he called a "fan favorite."

Between the charges brought against him and his unimpressive apology, Batali's career took a nosedive. ABC fired him from his hosting role on The Chew. Food Network also distanced itself from Batali, announcing that they would no longer be producing his show Molto Mario which they had previously planned to revive.

In May of 2018, the NYPD announced they were conducting an investigation of the accusations, but that investigation was closed in January 2019 with no charges filed. According to CNN, only one of the two cases being investigated was within the statute of limitations, and the NYPD was unable to find probable cause for either of the cases.

Sometimes the mantra "fake it till you make it" works, and other times it comes back to bite you. Chef Robert Irvine shot to fame as the host of Food Network's Dinner Impossible. His resume was impressive, boasting, among other things, a British knighthood, cooking for four former US presidents, and a friendship with Prince Charles — as well as a hand in creating his wedding cake when he wed Princess Diana. It all turned out to be too good to be true, however, when it was revealed in 2008 that Irvine's resume was substantially padded.

Irvine left Dinner Impossible in disgrace, although the show continued to air with Michael Symon at the helm. While Symon did a great job hosting the show, his presence on Dinner Impossible was temporary. After Irvine apologized and some time passed, Food Network welcomed Irvine back. According to Symon, that was the plan from the beginning, adding that he knew when he signed his contract that Irvine would likely be returning to the show.

Former Iron Chef contestant Graham Elliot stirred up controversy when he was accused of mishandling tips by his employees. Thirteen former waiters at his restaurant, the self-named Graham Elliot in Chicago, joined in the lawsuit originally filed by former waiter Gregory Curtis in 2012.

According to Curtis, the wait staff was forced to pool their tips, which would then be redistributed among the staff. Curtis said food runners and cooks should not have been entitled to a share of the tips as they "do not customarily and regularly receive tips." He sued for the wages that were lost as the result of the tip pooling.

Elliot didn't contest the claims, and ended up settling with his former waiters for an undisclosed amount. Under federal law, tip pooling is only allowed if the money is distributed among people who typically receive tips, a category that does not include food runners and cooks.

When Sandra Lee made a Kwanzaa Cake in 2009, AV Club described it as "a pile of ridiculousness slathered in despair and sprinkled with nonsense nuggets." The angel food cake was topped with store-bought frosting, corn nuts that she called acorns, and pumpkin seeds, then filled with apple pie filling. It was terrible, but terrible food isn't a scandal. What was scandalous is the offense she caused by declaring her train wreck of a dessert a celebration of Kwanzaa.

Food stylist Denise Vivaldo eventually stepped up and admitted responsibility. At the same time she said she'd been forced into its creation, she claimed to have done some research. Salon wanted to know what research that was, so they did their own. With the help of African diaspora expert and cookbook author Jessica Harris, they confirmed it was as authentic as you can probably guess. Harris said, "The thing that's potentially offensive to me is characterizing/determining a holiday about which neither the cake preparer nor the recipe designer has the first clue."

John Besh caused so much controversy that he was edited out of a January 2018 episode of Iron Chef Showdown that had been filmed in the spring of 2017. If you look closely, you can see him in the background in parts of the episode, but he was otherwise completely erased from the footage. The deletion happened after Besh was accused of sexual harassment by 25 of his employees at his restaurants. They claimed that sexual harassment was the norm at Besh Restaurant Group, which is co-owned by Besh.

In another complaint, filed separately,  a former employee who Besh had an affair with claimed that Besh coerced her throughout the relationship. Besh admitted to cheating on his wife with his employee, although he claimed that the affair was completely consensual. Besh's apology fell short. After the news broke, it was announced that Besh would also be edited out of an episode of Bravo's Top Chef.

Cat Cora narrowly avoided jail time in 2012 when she was involved in a low-speed traffic accident while driving with a blood alcohol level more than twice the legal limit. Today reported she admitted to drinking three beers before rear-ending a BMW, and when police got to the scene she was given a breathalyzer and a DUI before being taken to the Santa Barbara Sobering Center.

Eater got a hold of the 911 call made by the driver of the BMW, who claimed Cora "was wavering around the road... she's yelling and acting really weird. ... She's just been very aggressive. ... She was just driving insane."

Cora got off easy, with three years' probation, a fine, a suspended jail sentence, and nine months of DUI school. She also issued a statement, saying, "I deeply regret my decision to drive that evening after my designated driver became unavailable. I learned a very important lesson from this experience and take full accountability for my actions. This will never happen again."

Giada De Laurentiis announced she and husband Todd Thompson were splitting after 11 years of marriage in 2014. It wasn't long before the rumor mill started churning, and by 2015 E! News reported on her public denials, with the chef claiming she had never cheated on her husband.

Accusations just kept coming, and it was claimed she had hooked up with both John Mayer and Bobby Flay. Rumors about a fling with Mayer started way back in 2010, and when her divorce almost coincided with Flay's divorce from Stephanie March, tabloids thought that was a smoking gun. She denied it, saying (via US Magazine), "Well, we're very good friends... but I don't think that's ever going to happen because I'm smarter than that." In 2018, her choice in friends came back to haunt her again, when longtime friend Matt Lauer fell into disgrace. Fox News reported there had been rumors the two had been more than friends, but that, too, was denied.

The Next Food Network Star's third season was shaken by some serious shadiness. The OC Register reported that it was just before the final vote that Joshua Adam Garcia — better known by the acronym with a military vibe, JAG — was forced to withdraw for lying about his background.

Garcia had claimed to have graduated from the New York Restaurant School, and while he attended, he didn't graduate. According to The Army Times (via Reality TV World), he also lied — a lot — about his military service. Contrary to his claims, he was never deployed in a war zone, had his career as a Marine cut short for unspecified reasons, and wasn't actually a corporal. He was a formal corporal, as he had been demoted over a hazing scandal.

Paul Rieckhoff, founder of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said, "Pretending to be a combat veteran for any reason should not be taken lightly. That's absolutely unacceptable. It's an insult to the 1.6 million Americans who have been to Iraq and Afghanistan."

Alton Brown's not an easy guy to figure out. On the one hand, he seems to want to come across as a man of the people, explaining cooking in terms just about anyone could understand. On the other hand, he cultivates a persona that he describes as "evilicious," and has been known to make insensitive remarks about not only his fellow chefs but also some of his fans, particularly those in the plus-sized contingent.

On one occasion, Alton, speaking in front of an Iowa audience, did anything but wow the crowd according to one blogger — in fact, he left many of them speechless, not knowing what to make of remarks that came across as racist (a reference to a "real live Negro") and homophobic (a crack about a girl in the audience having "two daddies"). He then went on to compound his insensitivity by delivering a big ol' slap in the face to everyone who works in the restaurant industry, bragging about a time he bullied a North Carolina restaurant into making an item not on the menu by threatening to come back into the kitchen.

News of his comments don't seem to have made it to major news sites, but it did make waves on blogs, social networks, and forums where word spreads fast.

David Burtka and Neil Patrick Harris just seem like the cutest couple ever, don't they? Quite the new millennium fairy tale — former child star of Doogie Howser, M.D. comes out of the closet, meets and marries the chef of his dreams, and together they raise two adorable kiddies.

Turns out there's a snake even in this Garden of Eden — David Burtka, star of Food Network's Life of the Party with David Burtka, is extremely jealous over the fact that his hubby's quite the man-magnet, and doesn't trust Harris to be immune to temptation. In fact, when Harris was offered the starring role in the musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch in 2014, insiders said Burtka issued an ultimatum: six months max for Harris on Broadway, since any longer than that, he thought, would just be asking for trouble. Despite winning a Tony for his performance as the musical's title character, Harris did, in fact, step down from the role. Since he and his honey bunny still appear to be living happily ever after, perhaps chef Burtka really does know best.

You know that old saying "Never trust a skinny cook"? Obviously not the motto of the Food Network, where most of the stars seem chosen for their photogenic looks and star power as well as their culinary chops. Superstar chef Giada de Laurentiis, however, owes her perfect size-2 physique to a super-gross secret. While she preaches the gospel of portion control, an inside source connected to Giada's TV show told Page Six the petite chef never eats one single bite of all that supposedly irresistible food she seems so happy to prepare. In fact, sometimes Giada doesn't even let that nasty old food touch her lips — instead, she uses an assistant as a kind of "stunt double" for close-up teeth shots, and then has the camera pan back out to show her taking an empty fork out of her mouth. On those occasions where she actually does put food into her mouth, she doesn't swallow it. Instead, Giada spits it into a dump bucket that is kept just off-camera. Ewww, now that's an appetite-killer for sure.

Sexy Mexican chef Marcela Valladolid has appeared on several Food Network shows including her own Mexican Made Easy and a long-running stint on The Kitchen, while British celeb chef Paul Hollywood is best-known as a judge of The Great British Bake Off. In 2013, however, they collaborated on-screen, judging The American Baking Competition. They became quite cozy off-screen as well, indulging in a brief fling that nevertheless had some serious fallout. Eventually, the show was canceled, but the drama didn't stop there. Paul's wife filed for divorce, and Marcela and her husband also divorced.

Although Marcela is no longer currently hosting any TV shows, she's moved on in her personal life, now mother to two kids with her new fiance. Paul, on the other hand, still has a thriving career, judging Bake Off and hosting cooking shows for various TV networks including the Cooking Channel. On the domestic front, however, things have gone pretty far south since he and Marcela parted. While his wife eventually welcomed him back after the affair, she booted him out again a few years later when he got caught kissing a cooking show contestant.

Rachael Ray has gone way beyond celebrity chef to one-woman powerhouse: TV host, author, entrepreneur, and champion of all animals in need. In fact, she's so into doggos that she created a very special food with her own beloved pooch in mind, a portion of the profits from which are donated to her own Rachael Ray Foundation whose mission is to help animals in need.

Well, what about animals who have become ill from ingesting suspicious chemicals? Chemicals, perhaps, found among the "natural" ingredients in Ray's "Nutrish" line of pet foods? A $5 million lawsuit filed in 2018 alleges that Nutrish foods contain glyphosate, an herbicide used to make weed-killers such as Roundup. Rachael herself was not named in the lawsuit, and claimed to be feeding Nutrish to her own dog despite the controversy. Petsmart, one of the brands biggest retailers, didn't drop Rachael or her product line, but did issue a statement that it would be closely monitoring the situation. The lawsuit was eventually dismissed, but this most recent issue, on top of other earlier complaints, poor reviews and even recalls of Ray's pet food products, indicate that she might not be such an animal nutrition guru, after all.

Thinking before you speak is something Guy Fieri has yet to learn. The chef came under scrutiny in 2011 when some of his offensive remarks were revealed to the press. According to David Page, creator and former producer of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, Fieri's charm wins over audiences, but his off-camera demeanor isn't as sparkling. "Any time any woman mentioned 'cream,' Guy went into a sexual riff," he 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."

Fieri also revealed his distaste for the LGBT community. According to Page, one of the restaurants they visited for the show was run by two men who Fieri "had decided... were life partners." Page said Fieri called him and said "You can't send me to talk to gay people without warning! Those people weird me out!" Page added that from that time forward, the show's researchers were told to make a note if they picked up any "indications of homosexuality" during the pre-interview process.