Celebrity Chefs Who Got Caught Up In Big Controversies
From Julia Child to Martin Yan to Gordon Ramsay, TV chefs have become huge stars thanks to their outsized personalities and effervescent charm. Dazzling viewers with culinary crafts and engaging chat, these celebrity chefs have evolved from simply making meals on screen to presenting reality shows, judging cooking competitions, and becoming talk show hosts all their own. Many of the biggest chefs in the world of television are famously friendly and eager audiences eat them up.
Unfortunately, even the best celebrity chefs and most well-mannered meal-makers have had their scandalous moments. Whether due to a personal problem that spilled into public view or a past comment that resurfaced and got them into trouble, many TV chefs have found themselves ensnared in a controversy that threatened to take down their careers. Sometimes they've been contrite and offered apologies to make amends, while others have stood their ground and dug in their heels, certain they were unfairly judged. While a few of the TV chefs who've gotten into trouble might not be a surprise, some may raise an eyebrow. So scroll on to see if your favorite personality makes our list of celebrity chefs who've gotten caught up in big controversies.
Ina Garten
Better known to her fans as the Barefoot Contessa, chef Ina Garten hosted a show of the same name on the Food Network for nearly two whole decades. The show prominently features Garten's real-life husband Jeffrey, as well as many of her friends and family. She often whips up impressive meals to feed them all. Known for her easygoing attitude and low-pressure, light entertainment style, Garten is possibly the least polarizing celebrity chef around. Nevertheless, she still managed to upset many of her loyal followers in 2011. Many were miffed after it came out in the press that she'd rejected a Make-A-Wish request from a dying child.
For the previous few years, six-year-old Enzo Pereda — diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia — had been hoping to meet his idol, the Barefoot Contessa, whose show he'd become a fan of while ill. He'd even hoped she might cook him a meal, but those hopes were dashed for the first time when Garten's reps insisted she was too busy to accommodate his wish. Later, after another request, Garten's publicist flatly refused, to which Pereda responded — on the charitable website Angels for Enzo — "Why doesn't she want to meet me?" Despite getting the cold shoulder, Enzo insisted, "I still want her as my 1st wish, even if she doesn't want me." Perada's parents insisted that there was no ill will, asking her son's supporters to stop harassing Garten about the issue.
Alton Brown
Social media can be a landmine for celebrities, whose off-the-cuff remarks online can elicit jeers and ruin reputations. It happened to celebrity chef Alton Brown after a bad joke went too far and riled up countless fans and followers, not to mention the general public. It all went down over on Twitter (now called X) in late 2020, when most people were still stuck at home due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
In November of that year Brown posted a message joking about the ever-increasing restrictions surrounding the pandemic. "So, when they move us to the camps, do you think they'll let us choose the state?," Brown tweeted (as relayed by Deadline after he deleted the post). The reference to concentration camps got more explicit in further comments he made, asking his hundreds of thousands of followers "Do you think the camp uniforms will be striped, like the ones at Auschwitz, or will plaid be in vogue?"
Almost immediately there was a public outcry, and within hours Brown was forced to issue a public apology insisting the tweet wasn't a joke and that he was genuinely worried for the future of the country. But that didn't seem to satisfy many, and only seemed to make his initial remarks even worse. Commenters online took Brown to task for his casual attitude toward the Holocaust, with some swearing off watching him ever again.
Wang Gang
Though he never did have his own show on the Food Network, chef extraordinaire Wang Gang is a big celebrity on YouTube with millions of followers. He posts cooking videos regularly on his channel where he goes by the name Chef Wang, but in 2020 he came under fire for one recipe that used an ingredient so rare and precious that even his own fans couldn't believe he used it. If that sounds like an extreme reaction to a cooking show, it will make more sense when you learn that the ingredient was an endangered species — the Chinese giant salamander.
Listed as critically endangered, the giant salamander is the biggest amphibian on Earth, sometimes growing to the size of an adult human. They are also the descendants of ancient salamanders from the Jurassic Era, and some even believe they are the source of the Yin and Yang symbols known the world over. So it's understandable that viewers were aghast when Gang casually slaughtered the giant salamander and used it in one of his meals. His callous disregard for the conservation of this endangered creature, combined with his laissez-faire attitude toward killing it for food, prompted swift outrage. He apologized, but he also defended the video by telling his viewers that the animal was sourced from a farm.
Jamie Oliver
It's not uncommon for a celebrity to get caught up in controversy due to comments or behavior that rubs people the wrong way. But how often does it lead to a billion-dollar lawsuit? That's exactly what happened to British chef Jamie Oliver, who got his start in food media in the late '90s hosting "The Naked Chef" and has been delighting fans ever since while hosting countless cooking specials. In 2011, however, Oliver got in legal hot water after he made questionable remarks on an episode of his show "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution."
In the show, Oliver brought up the topic of lean finely-textured beef, commonly referred to as "pink slime." In the segment, Oliver described in gory detail how the product is made and then treated with ammonia to make it edible for the public. Many were horrified at what he described, and before long a number of grocers were removing such products from their shelves. In response, the South Dakota-based meat processing company Beef Products Inc filed a $1.2 billion lawsuit against Oliver and the TV network ABC, alleging that his comments were deliberately misleading to consumers. The suit claimed that the show had caused demand to drop and prices to plummet and sought compensation for lost revenue and punitive damages, as detailed by the Independent. A second lawsuit was filed by a fired BPI employee who believed that Oliver's comments and the resulting sales decline were what led to the company laying off more than 700 employees.
Rachael Ray
There are few celebrity chefs today more universally loved than Rachael Ray, who may have inherited the role of America's favorite TV chef from Julia Child. Not everyone loves her, though, and it might surprise you to learn that some of her harshest critics were her own employees.
The problems arose during the COVID-19 pandemic when much of Hollywood — including talk shows like "Rachael Ray" — were shut down or forced to implement tough safety measures if they were to continue. To get the show made, Ray opted to film episodes from the privacy of her own home, without her staff, in 2020. As reported by Variety at the time, Ray's show laid off more than 20 employees when Ray backtracked about plans to return to the studio in November 2020, opting instead to continue the one-woman show into 2021. And those employees were furious with their former boss, demanding their contracts for the whole season be honored. Ray herself claimed to be troubled by the accusations, insisting her production team was still working out the parameters of the deal with staff, but few seemed convinced.
Ming Tsai
Chef and restauranteur Ming Tsai put his TV chef hat on for the first time in the 1990s, winning a Daytime Emmy Award late that decade. Ever since that time, he's been a regular on the television cooking circuit, most prominently on his own series "Simply Ming," which has been running since 2003. But in 2023, Tsai made waves after he gave controversial remarks to WBUR, a local Boston TV station. In an interview with the station, he joked about putting a "roofie" in the drink chef and interviewer Irene Li, who quickly took him to task on social media.
In addition to the offensive joke about Li, Tsai also made comments regarding a fear that the Me Too movement might negatively affect the restaurant business. After Li shared her side of the story, it wasn't long before fans were attacking him in various comments sections online and he was forced to issue an apology. "I made some comments I regret, including those about the Me Too movement," he said in the statement on Instagram. "It was not my intention to be insensitive or dismissive of the experiences of those who have been affected by sexual misconduct."
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Guy Fieri
TV chefs often tend to be elitist types. TV star Guy Fieri broke the mold in the 2000s as a blue-collar, average Joe with a down-to-earth sensibility with his Food Network hit "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives," a series that gave culinary respect to everyday food. He had his critics, given his outspoken attitude, and in 2011 those critics must have felt vindicated when he was at the center of a major lawsuit that revealed bad workplace behavior.
According to the filing by a former producer — which was actually in relation to a breach of contract — emails were released that showed Fieri being verbally abusive to his staff. There was also evidence of sexual misconduct as well as homophobic, racist, and misogynistic comments while on the job. The Food Network countersued the producer and the two sides eventually settled out of court, letting Fieri somewhat off the hook. More recently, criticism of Fieri kicked into a higher gear after he was photographed in 2023 with former President and current presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Robert Irvine
In 2007, former Royal Navy Officer and chef Robert Irvine began hosting "Dinner: Impossible," a Food Network reality series where he'd be challenged to craft a meal — typically for a large event — in just 24 hours. The series received a spin-off "Restaurant: Impossible," where he'd have 48 hours and a tight budget to overhaul a struggling restaurant. Between those two and his gig hosting "Worst Cooks in America," Irvine was on top of the TV chef world when, in 2008, he was accused of being a fraud.
As outlined in Ben Montgomery's expose in the Tampa Bay Times, Irvine was accused of falsifying his past credentials. In addition to lying about being knighted by the Queen, Irvine was also accused of exaggerating his role as White House chef and pretending he was personal friends with Prince Charles. While some may have shrugged it off — after all, does it really matter what he says he did before he was a successful TV chef? Well, the Food Network wasn't laughing and booted him from his own show, "Dinner: Impossible."
Irvine has pushed back against the accusations, admitting to some of them while claiming that most of it was simply innocent, friendly chatter that got out of hand. Robert Irvine was able to bounce back after the brouhaha died down and Food Network returned the hosting duties of "Dinner: Impossible" to him in 2009.
Mario Batali
It's bad enough when a celebrity chef gets caught making an inappropriate remark or an offensive joke. But when it's allegedly predatory behavior it's much more difficult to forgive, and sadly that's the case with Mario Batali, star TV chef and frequent Food Network guest. In 2017, a group of eight women came forward to accuse Batali of sexual misconduct. One woman alleged that he'd pressured her to get undressed, while another said that Batali had reached up her dress to touch her without her consent.
As more women came forward to make further accusations against him, Mario Batali found himself accused of indecent assault and eventually turned up in court in Boston in 2019. Rather than settle with his accuser, though, Batali chose a bench trial and stood before a judge on an indecent assault and battery charge. Accused of groping a woman while in a bar in Boston, Batali was eventually acquitted. While the judge condemned Batali's behavior on the night of the incident, he cited credibility issues with the accuser when announcing the not-guilty verdict. Regardless of the outcome of that single trial, however, Batali's other accusers never backed down, and the chef himself mostly lost his TV career, only returning in 2022 for two episodes of "The Toque 12 – Master Chefs."
Bobby Flay
Celebrity divorces can be fraught with complications as the press, media, and anxious fans hound famous for the most intimate details of their relationship. That very situation unfolded after the divorce of superstar chef Bobby Flay from his actor wife, Stephanie March, of "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" fame, Flay was one of the biggest chefs on television, owned high-class restaurants, and hosted numerous shows of his own. Unfortunately for Flay, the lack of privacy during his divorce didn't make him look good and he wound up getting into a lot of trouble in the press and with his own fans.
During the debacle, information quickly reached the masses from court documents. This included accusations of extramarital affairs, with Flay alleged to have gone behind his wife's back with his younger assistant. One point of contention was March's charge that she played an instrumental role in her husband's business, and thus felt that their pre-nuptial agreement should be declared void as she demanded a more alimony. Flay couldn't have been happy to hear someone taking credit for his success, and in the end, March lost her court battle, with the prenup holding strong. Flay's reputation took a hit, however, as the juicy gossip seeped its way into the news cycle.
Nigella Lawson
Nigella Lawson may have started her career as a journalist but now she's better known as the Domestic Goddess, a TV cook and cookbook author. In 2013 Nigella got embroiled in a scandal related to sisters Francesca and Elisabetta Grillo, two former assistants who were charged with fraud after allegedly stealing some £300,000 from her. But the controversy went beyond the theft of her money, because as part of the trial, the two assistants made stunning accusations against their old boss.
Tried in a courtroom in London, the two women took the stand and claimed that the famously bubbly Lawson had a daily cocaine habit and was abusing prescription pills. Shockwaves rippled across kitchens everywhere as they heard allegations that their favorite on-screen cook even made efforts to keep her addiction secret from her then-husband, Chris Saatchi. Things only got more bizarre when it was later alleged that Saatchi had been working with the Grillos to defame and discredit Lawson.
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Gordon Ramsay
Known for his angry outbursts at cooks who can't do the job right, celebrity TV chef and host of "Hell's Kitchen" Gordon Ramsay has built himself a reputation for tough love. But his dogged exterior (and penchant for swearing) wasn't just for show, it seems, because it came out that he wasn't just mad at contestants on his show, but also with members of his own family. Ramsay had a longstanding feud with his father-in-law Chris Hutcheson.
In 2010, Hutcheson was fired by Ramsay from his role as CEO of his company, Gordon Ramsay Holdings. Whatever the reason for being let go, it's clear that Hutcheson felt spurned because the tension between them never abated. In 2012, an alleged mistress of Hutcheson filed a lawsuit against Ramsay, claiming that the TV chef had hired a private detective to follow her and take private photos of her through a bedroom window. In 2017, Hutcheson was taken to court over hacking Ramsay, and Hutcheson and his two sons pled guilty, admitting to illegally gaining access to Ramsay's computer on nearly 2000 occasions. The hacks involved sensitive financial information and embarrassing personal details about Ramsay that were leaked to U.K. tabloids.