Celebrity Chef Scandals
Stirring up controversy, indeed! From Paula Deen’s N-word controversy to Martha Stewart’s prison sentence, recall the scandals that have rocked certain celebrity chefs!
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Celebrity Chef Scandals
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Paula Deen
Deen came under fire in June 2013, when she admitted during a deposition to using the N-word in the past. "If there's anyone out there that has never said something that they wish they could take back -- if you're out there, please pick up that stone and throw it so hard at my head that it kills me," she sobbed on the TODAY show.
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Nigella Lawson
British Nigella Bites star made headlines in June 2013 when her husband of nearly 10 years, advertising mogul Charles Saatchi, was seen grabbing her throat during a tense lunch in London. After Saatchi told the Daily Mail newspaper that he was disappointed Lawson failed to public defend him after the argument (which he called a "playful tiff"), he announced he was divorcing her.
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Amy and Samy Bouzaglo
The Bouzaglos had a rough 2013 after their Arizona restaurant, Amy's Baking Company, was featured on Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. For the first time in the show's 82-episode's history, Ramsay quit, saying, "I met two owners I could not help, it is because they are incapable of listening."
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Gordon Ramsay
Forget Kitchen Nightmares. Ramsay had his very own family nightmare when it was revealed that his father-in-law and business partner, Chris Hutcheson, was living a double life with a mistress and two children. Ramsay claimed that Hutcheson hacked his email after he fired him, and lawsuits were filed, but have since been settled.
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Bobby Flay
Questions still surround Bobby Flay regarding Mad Men star January Jones' car accident in June 2010, where she hit two parked cars, and the Food Network star (married to actress Stephanie March), showed up at the scene after she called him for help. At the time, Jones' rep insisted the pair were just casual acquaintances. "They are friends, nothing more," her rep told Us.
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Padma Lakshmi
The Top Chef host was at war with the father of their daughter, Krishna, in 2011, when he filed a lawsuit against his ex, seeking full custody and claiming that Lakshmi had refused to put his name on the birth certificate and made him sign a restrictive temporary-visitation agreement that gave him only a few hours a week with her. In the end, Dell, a venture capitalist, won extra custody and visitation rights.. "Lakshmi believes that family matters should be kept private," her rep told Us.
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Jeff "Frugal Gourmet" Smith
Smith, a popular television cook in the '80s and '90s with a series of cookbooks, was hit with lawsuits in 1997 by seven young men who accused him of having sexually abused them when they were in their teens. The PBS star denied the accusations and the suit was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount in 1998. His show, The Frugal Gourmet aired from 1983 to 1997, and he died of heart disease at the age of 65 in 2004.
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Rachael Ray
In April 2013, Rachael Ray was sued by an April 2011 guest, who claimed that her prom weight loss regimen -- broadcast on Ray's show -- was nightmarish at best. Christina Pagliarolo alleged that Ray and her colleagues were "grossly negligent, careless, reckless, wanton, and outrageous" in their conduct and that the trainer hired by the network "yelled and screamed at her" in a manner that caused Pagliarolo "to feel anxious, demeaned and threatened."
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Juan-Carlos Cruz
Talk about getting to an extreme boiling point. Cruz, a former pastry chef at Hotel Bel-Air and past star of Food Network’s Calorie Commando and Weighing In, was arrested in 2010 after allegedly hiring two homeless men to kill his attorney wife, Jennifer Campbell. In December 2010, he pleaded no contest to solicitation of murder and was sentenced to nine years in prison. Prosecutors did not release a motive in the case, and the couple declined to comment after the sentence.
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Mario Batali
The Iron Chef America star and his business associate, Joseph Bastianich, were accused of tip skimming in 2010, allegedly pocketing up to five percent of their restaurant workers' tip pool at New York City's Babbo and Del Posto restaurant. In March 2012, they both agreed to pay $5.25 million to settle the lawsuit. "Mr. Batali, Mr. Bastianich, and their restaurants unlawfully confiscated a portion of their workers' hard-earned tips in order to supplement their own profits," employees said.
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Martha Stewart
Stewart, who's penned many bestselling cookbooks and had her own shows, Martha and Martha Stewart Living, was convicted in 2004 on charges relating to insider trading of stocks. She paid more than $150,000 in fines and served five months in a West Virginia federal prison. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Stewart said that she was sorry for the "chaos" her prosecution caused.
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Guy Fieri
Forget that scathing New York Times review of his Times Square eatery: The host of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives was accused of being homophobic in 2011 by a former show producer, David Page, who told the Minneapolis's City Pages that Fieri didn't want to be around gays and lesbians. Page recalled the chef calling him once and saying, 'You can't send me to talk to gay people without warning! Those people weird me out!'" Later, Fieri's reps told Gawker that the claims were "complete fabrications."
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Anthony Bourdain
The Travel Channel's No Reservations chef has been outspoken on fellow chef Paula Deen, whom he called a "bobblehead" and "greedy" following her 2012 revelation that she had been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes years ago and continued sharing unhealthy recipes on her cooking show. After Deen announced at the time that she was a spokesperson for Novo Nordisk, which treats the disease, he quipped, "Thinking of getting into the leg-breaking business, so I can profitably sell crutches."
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