Chances are you know Giada De Laurentiis. That is, of course, if you love good Italian
food and have even the tiniest inkling toward foodie culture. But it turns out, the longtime
Food Network star's journey to fame is just as impressive as her cooking. Here's why this
chef is still turning heads.
"First thing out of peoples' mouth is, 'How do you stay like that and eat all that pasta?'
I'm like, 'I don't eat all the pasta.'"
Born in Rome in 1970, Giada didn't exactly descend from food TV royalty, but she was
born into a high-profile Italian family. Her grandfather was the famed Italian movie mogul
Dino De Laurentiis, and her parents were actress Veronica De Laurentiis and actor-producer
Alex De Benedetti.
By all accounts, Giada's early years in Italy were filled with lots of happy memories. But
despite the fact that the De Laurentiis clan was entrenched in the film industry, Giada
wasn't exactly curious about the family biz. She told Food & Wine,
"I wasn't looking to get into TV. My family was in the movie business, so I was never
interested in that world."
Clearly, Giada was determined to march to the beat of her own drum.
Giada is the first person to admit that she has lived a charmed life thanks to the incredible
opportunities she's been given. But that doesn't mean she hasn't faced adversity. This was
especially the case when she first moved to the United States at the age of seven and
enrolled in English-speaking school. She confessed to Redbook,
"I came here from Italy in the '70s and didn't speak a word of English, so the kids at school
tormented me. Truly, it was horrifying the names they called me, and the teachers never
really did a thing to stop it."
Fortunately Giada had a secret weapon: her developing interest in cooking delicious food.
She added,
"It helped me build my ego and even start to get acceptance at school. I'd bring things
to class that I'd cooked at home, and my classmates were like, 'Wow. This is amazing, and that
girl with the funny name cooked it.'"
"How did you end up without an accent?"
"When you go to grade school, grammar school in the states, you end up assimilating"
Giada had already won over people's hearts with her culinary skills, even before she
hit her teens.
While Giada loved preparing and sharing food from the beginning, it was when she hit her
tweens that she really formed a desire to make a career out of her passion. And much
of that was because her grandfather, whose parents had a pasta factory back in Italy,
brought that entrepreneurial spirit stateside. Giada told TIME magazine,
"After [my grandfather] became a movie producer, he opened up De Laurentiis Food Stores, one
in Los Angeles and one in New York. I was 12, and I would go there after school."
It was then that Giada truly began to fall in love with the food scene that existed outside
of her home. She remembered,
"It was a gourmet grocery store that also had a kitchen and served food. I loved being
in the kitchen, watching the customers come in and talk about what they liked and didn't
like."
While Giada's grandfather closed the stores after only two years, those memories made
a lasting impact on the budding chef.
Giada became the first member of her family to attend college. And in 1996, she graduated
with a degree in anthropology from UCLA. Not only that, but she was able to make her academic
dream a reality completely on her own accord. She revealed in a chat with Eater,
"I paid for my own college. I paid to go to UCLA, probably why I went to UCLA and not
USC."
"Oh yeah, it's comin' along, folks, it's comin' along."
However, at the time, Giada says that no one at home made a big deal of her accomplishment,
despite how monumental it was. She said,
"I come from a large Italian family, they only care about boys. Girls are supposed to
get married and have children."
The cultural norms of the time have changed significantly in the decades since.
While Giada took her studies seriously in college, she wasn't completely against the
social scene. That's how she wound up meeting and dating her eventual husband, clothing
designer Todd Thompson. She shared with Redbook,
"When we first met, I didn't have any money because I was in college, and he paid every
time we went out to dinner. So I'd show my love for him by making a meal."
At first Thompson had a bit of a hard time fitting in with Giada's large, Italian family
and would get the side-eye from relatives for cutting his pasta with a fork and knife.
Giada said,
"Luckily, my husband is confident enough that he never took it personally. He'd laugh it
off, and my family ended up adoring him."
Once Giada graduated from UCLA, she knew in her heart that she wanted to go to culinary
school. Despite her parents' misgivings about the idea, Giada packed her bags and flew off
to Paris to attend the world-famous cooking school, Le Cordon Bleu. She dished to Total
Food Service,
"I'm going to be honest, it was brutal. The chefs threw pans and rolling pins, I had burns
all up and down my arms, and it was intense, laborious work."
"It was the first time I was away from home, away from my family, I didn't speak French.
Actually I don't know what I was thinking at the time"
Giada also claimed that the experience shattered any notion she harbored that a career in the
cooking industry would be a glamorous one. Fortunately, she survived culinary school,
despite the challenges that came with it, including being one of the few women in her
class. She said,
"Going to Cordon Bleu taught me how to prove myself by not just talking the talk, but walking
the walk."
After finishing culinary school, Giada returned to the U.S., spending several years working
for different high-profile chefs in some fairly menial positions. Born out of the need to
make money after being pressured by her family, De Laurentiis then went into catering, which
was a more lucrative hustle at the time.
"Giada, you're just so funny, c'mere you."
"Stop, stop. I have pepper spray and I'm not afraid to use it."
Giada would go on to essentially crush it on the small screen, but it would be her family
connection that first put her on the map. After Food Network exec Bob Tuschman read
an editorial Giada wrote about her family in Food & Wine, he asked her to put together
an audition tape for the fledgling network, which she stalled on for quite some time.
She told Eater,
"It took a year to convince me to put myself on tape."
But when she finally did submit it, she knocked it out of the park, thanks to the help of
her brother. She recalled,
"I had music, I had an open, I had it all…It was all choreographed."
Thanks to the tape, in 2003, Everyday Italian was born.
Just as Giada's career as a celebrity chef was taking off with her first show airing
regularly on Food Network, tragedy struck. In 2003, her younger brother Dino died of
skin cancer at the age of 31. Naturally, Giada was devastated. She told Entertainment Tonight,
"He was the person I turned to for everything, when something great happened in my life,
when something bad happened. I would talk to him two to three times per day."
"He just loved living. And he enjoyed every moment. I sometimes think to myself, I wish
I had more of that in me, that free spirit that he had."
In light of her brother's untimely passing, Giada made it a priority to educate people
about the importance of wearing sunscreen and getting regular skin scans. She explained
in a public service announcement:
"Those are the two most important things. Because had my brother checked his skin and
checked his body, he would have seen that something wasn't right."
De Laurentiis regularly pays tribute to her brother on Instagram, and it's clear his memory
remains dear to her heart.
Despite the family's devastating loss, Giada's career was going full-steam ahead. After Everyday
Italian became a success, multiple spin offs followed close behind. In 2007, Giada's Weekend
Getaways debuted on the network, which filmed Giada at popular food destinations in the
U.S. And after that, Giada at Home launched its wildly popular run in 2008, followed by
Giada's Holiday Handbook, Giada Entertains, and Giada in Italy. You can also catch the
popular chef on Food Network Star.
"But you can't relax 'cause the challenges keep on coming."
Giada also became an author multiple times over, starting with the cookbook Everyday
Italian, which featured recipes from her show of the same name. That was followed by eight
additional cookbooks, which landed her on The New York Times' "Best Seller" list on
multiple occasions. She also published several books for children that explore her favorite
cities around the world, as well as feature recipes for kids.
There was no question, then, that Giada had become a bona fide celebrity.
Clearly, Giada had a lot on her plate as far as her career was concerned. So it wasn't
too surprising that she and her husband had mutually decided against having children.
But, as she confessed to Redbook,
"Then Jade came along, and I was very afraid, and so was Todd. What would happen to this
life we had created, where we'd just take off for Santa Barbara for the weekend?"
The star and her husband welcomed their daughter when Giada was 37. And despite her initial
concerns, Giada quickly realized that fitting little Jade into her life wouldn't be especially
difficult. She said,
"I've continued my life exactly as it was. Jade knows her mother works and travels, and
she travels with me."
"Jade's makin' gnocchi. Rafi, Jade's makin' gnocchi."
Jade has certainly been a source of joy in Giada's life, as anyone can see from a quick
look at Giada's Instagram feed.
While gender discrimination may be rampant in the American workforce, fortunately for
Giada, it hasn't stopped her from accomplishing her goals. She explained in an interview with
Elle,
"It's so funny because, for the longest time, I never saw myself as a female chef versus
a male chef. I just saw myself like everybody else, just trying to make a living and trying
to do my job really well."
That determination helped Giada to become the first female chef to open a restaurant
on the Las Vegas strip, which she did in 2014.
"So, sort of, allowing people to feel like they're coming over to my house for dinner
with all the special touches that you would find at my house."
She told Elle,
"I've said this over and over to many women in my business, you kind of have to learn
the ropes. It's like a game of chess or Monopoly. You have to learn how to play the game."
Although Giada was married to her husband Todd for over a decade, and had been in a
relationship with him since she was 18, the couple ultimately got divorced. After a six
month separation, Giada announced on Facebook,
"Although our decision to separate comes with a great deal of sadness, our focus on the
future and overwhelming desire for our family's happiness has given us the strength to move
forward on separate, yet always connected paths."
After the news broke, Giada hit the brakes on public appearances. She later told E! News,
"I tried to stay under the radar to protect my family and my daughter, mostly. I think
that the pain was so raw for so long that I just felt like I couldn't [even talk about
it]."
"I had been with Jade's dad for 25 years. I sort of didn't even know what it meant to
not be married"
Eventually Giada felt ready to start dating again. In 2015, she connected with TV producer
Shane Farley, and the two have been inseparable ever since.
Giada is truly a successful chef and business woman in every way. From her shows to her
books to her ever-enduring appeal, she has proven that she's a force to be reckoned with.
But it took a while for even her grandfather to give her the praise she deserved. She told
Redbook,
"Over the years, I think [my grandfather] became quite proud, and maybe even a little
shocked, at my success. You have to understand that coming from a Neapolitan family, men
head up the empire."
"I was gonna take my time as a lady, but I guess not."
Giada's grandfather initially questioned her capabilities, mainly because of the easygoing
approach she took to cooking, the very same thing that made her so accessible to viewers.
She told the outlet,
"I remember him once saying to me, 'How can you tell people to open a jar of prepared
pasta sauce.' Those were the kinds of debates we would have."
"Cheers to fantastic tomato sauce."
With everything that Giada has accomplished in her life, you might think she's content
to rest on her laurels. But that's simply not in Giada's ambitious nature. She told
Total Food Service,
"I have a distinctive drive to keep accomplishing more, and I always hear my grandfather's voice
in the back of my head telling me to keep going."
Looking forward, you can expect Giada to champion wellness, as she makes the world a better
place one plate at a time. She said,
"I believe the very first thing you can do for yourself is eat healthy and balanced,
and everything else will fall into place. One of my goals in life is to make sure I'm
doing the best I can to take part in creating healthier lives for future generations."
Check out one of our newest videos right here! Plus, even more List videos about your favorite
stars are coming soon. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss
a single one.