The Tough Reality Behind Andrew Zimmern's Fame

Andrew Zimmern may be a successful chef, food critic, and television host, but the demands of his career have certainly taken their toll on his personal life, including his 16-year marriage to Rishia Haas. Zimmern and Haas tied the knot in December 2002, two years after meeting at a cookware store in Minneapolis, and they welcomed their son Noah in 2005. By 2018, the couple had separated, and their divorce was finalized in 2020. Zimmern, who has undergone somewhat of a transformation over the years, has been brutally honest about how his fame led to the breakdown of his marriage to Haas.

Shortly after they married, Zimmern planned to leave the restaurant business and launch his media career, which he believed would give him more time with his family. The success that followed did quite the opposite. Zimmern got his big break in 2006 as the "Bizarre Foods" guy on the Travel Channel, and his career went from strength to strength, leading to a lot of travel and time away from Haas and their child. In an email published by The New York Times in 2018, Zimmern admitted: "I wasn't there for my wife, and I wasn't there for my son. My wife gave me a thousand chances to make it right." The TV chef went on to say that he underestimated "the strange dependence I would come to have surrounding all the attention and the merry-go-round of being a public person."

Although Andrew Zimmern came from a privileged background and now has an estimated net worth of $14 million, it's no secret that he once struggled with homelessness and substance abuse. Before finding fame and getting married, Zimmern fell on hard times after he was evicted from his NYC apartment around December 1990. The would-be TV star slept in an abandoned building on Sullivan Street in Manhattan that was in the midst of being renovated. He didn't shower for a year and slept on a pile of dirty clothes on the floor. A shoplifted container of Comet cleaner sprinkled around his sleeping place was how he kept rats and cockroaches away.

The tragic details of Zimmern's earlier life began when he was young. His mental health challenges began as a child, and he first got drunk at the age of 10. At 15, Zimmern was smoking marijuana and snorting cocaine before school. Speaking on "The Hilarious World of Depression" podcast, he said: "It was the beginning of what became my love affair with speedballing." By 1992, Zimmern entered Hazelden, a rehab center in Minnesota, where he worked through his 12-step recovery program. After five weeks in treatment, he transitioned into a halfway house and started working as a dishwasher at Dubins Café in St. Paul. Zimmern worked his way up in the restaurant industry, and come 2006, he was hosting "Bizarre Foods" on the Travel Channel, a gig that opened doors to the career success he has today.

If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).