$30 million diamond cakes! Blood-gushing tragedy! And faking his identity?! From ditching school,
to breakin' the law, here's what you don't know about Buddy Valastro.
Buddy Valastro brings a whole lot of baking experience to his various TV roles,
thanks to a life spent working in his family-run bakery. He was just six years
old when he first began learning the ropes from his father, Buddy Senior,
at Carlo's Bakery. As Valastro detailed in an essay for Guideposts,
"I loved the sweet intoxicating aroma, the whirr of the machines, machines like I’d never seen
before! […] In his hands pastry dough came alive. […] It was like magic. I was in awe."
"I used to come and see my dad. He was always so busy,
but he always had the time to spend a little time with me and I want the same for my kids."
As Valastro grew older, he was expected to put in some
time at the bakery to grow a sense of responsibility. Remembering how
his dad wanted him to go to college and get an education, Valastro told Parade,
"My dad never told me that I had to be a baker. But he said,
'I want you to come to the bakery to learn a work ethic.'"
Working at his family's bakery as a kid provided
the future TLC star with a culinary education like no other. As Valastro wrote for Guideposts,
"Every task was a chance to teach me how to do things right and then do them better."
By the time he was 12, Valastro wanted to put his skills into practice. As he recalled to Parade,
"The first cake that I ever made was my mom's birthday cake.
My dad wouldn't let me practice on a customer cake, so I had to make something for my mom,
which was pretty fun. […] It was an Italian rum cake. It was a little crooked but she loved it."
Describing the sense of accomplishment he felt, Buddy told the outlet,
"When you’re done, you step back, look at what you've created, and get a feeling of self-worth,
and satisfaction. I wanted that feeling for the rest of my life."
As Valastro revealed to Vanity Fair, he may have been working amongst a team of bakers,
but it was his dad who would have the greatest impact on his skills. He shared with Parade,
"I idolized my dad. In my heart I probably always wanted to be a baker like him,
but it was the cake decorating that got me."
Still, there was plenty to learn along the way.
And his dad wasn't letting him skip any steps. Valastro recalled to the Seattle Times,
"The first day, I cleaned bowls. Dad wanted me to start at the bottom.
I did every job in the bakery. […] If I didn’t do it that way, I wouldn't be who I am today.
I wouldn't understand the delivery guy. These are lessons my dad showed me."
"Who wants to eat some cake?"
Valastro explained that it was literally putting
the icing on the cake that got him hooked on baking for life.
Valastro is a firm
believer in the promise of the American Dream. As he once noted to Vanity Fair,
"I believe that if you work hard, and you do what you have to do,
you can accomplish anything. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm a
high-school dropout. But I believe the American Dream is still alive."
Quitting high school wasn't Valastro's first choice, but it was a necessity due to his
father's untimely death from cancer when Buddy was just 17. He explained to the Seattle Times,
"I dropped out of school in junior year of high school and went to work full time."
"I'm not sure how it's gonna turn out yet."
Explaining that his dad's many lessons became key during this time,
Valastro had to step up as the boss, telling Parade,
"I was pretty much in charge. But I had bakers who worked here for 30 years. They didn't want
to listen to a 17-year-old kid. […] I remember my father saying respect is something that you have to earn. It's not
something you can get because you're someone's son." While Buddy Valastro's name has become synonymous with the title of his TLC series,
"Cake Boss," that nickname wasn't a thing before he made it to TV.
As he told Bakers Journal, he was initially "skeptical" of the title, adding,
"I didn't want to come off like a jerk — like I was better than everyone else — but it shows
who I am in a true light. Now, I couldn't think of being anything else but that."
"Nice."
As for his TV fame, Valastro admitted he thought a show
about the day-to-day antics at Carlo's Bakery would probably attract viewers,
but he didn't expect it to be a smash hit. Still, the series has been instrumental in helping
Valastro achieve his goal of making Carlo's "a household name." He told The Daily Meal,
"Now we have a few more people around with cameras, but they're
like family to us anyway. […] We're still a neighborhood bakery, we do it Hoboken style!"
Carlo's Bakery was founded as a family business, just as it remains today.
But for Valastro, the line between his business and his personal life
isn't a precisely defined one. He shared with Bakers Journal,
"Having it run by my family, nobody's going to want to work harder or put in more time;
they feel so connected to it. But the problem is, they feel almost too connected and they
take it too personally — business is business and sometimes you need to separate the two."
"Go back to work. Go ahead. Go ahead, let's go. You, up there."
Among the family members Valastro works with is his brother-in-law Joey Faugno,
who told Business News Daily,
"Working in a family business is unlike anything else. You fight and yell,
and then you sit down for a meal. […] I feel lucky that we can work so hard
at our jobs but still have that family time while we’re doing it."
As fans know well, when it comes to Valastro, family is everything.
Especially when they're also his coworkers. He told the outlet,
"Family is very important to me and the bakery is a big part of who we are."
Not only did fans of the show get to know Buddy,
they also met his boisterous family. And during the show's first few seasons, that included his
mother, Mary Valastro, who stepped away from the series after she was diagnosed with ALS
in 2012. She would pass away five years later in 2017. As a spokesperson told People,
"Mary's condition had been steadily worsening these past months,
so it was not sudden but still extremely heartbreaking for the family.
After eight years of fighting her battle with ALS, the family is relieved she is no longer
suffering. Buddy and his sisters are absolutely crushed right now."
"I couldn't have asked for a better mother."
Valastro knew that his mother would have wanted him to forge ahead with
both the company business and his TV ventures, later telling the outlet,
"She doesn't want me to stop. She wants me to be the patriarch of the family and
keep doing what I'm doing, 100 percent. There's not even a doubt in my mind."
When "Cake Boss" became a hit,
Valastro was savvy enough to capitalize on his newfound fame by taking the business to even
greater heights. As the Jersey Journal reported, in 2019, he expanded beyond the original Carlo's
Hoboken location by opening a 30,000-square-foot outpost in Jersey City. It is there that orders
are baked and shipped throughout the U.S. And the facility also hosts baking classes for guests.
"A lot of people don't know this, but the Cake Boss can cook."
Meanwhile, Valastro also threw his hat into the restaurant biz. In 2013, Eater reported on
the opening of his Italian eatery in Las Vegas, with Buddy V's situated in The Venetian Resort.
In 2016, he opened a second Buddy V's location, at what is now Wind Creek Bethlehem.
Valastro explained how opening an Italian restaurant was both
on brand and also a subversion of expectations, telling Eater,
"Everyone wants a bakery from me. […] With my vision,
my flair, I think it's a recipe for success."
Valastro has never
been the kind of celebrity known for big scandals. But in 2014,
ABC News reported that he was pulled over by police on suspicion of driving
while under the influence. According to the prosecution, Valastro allegedly told the cops,
"You can't arrest me! I'm the Cake Boss."
"When I got into the car, I thought I was fine to drive and obviously I wasn't,
and the cops did their job that night and, uh, listen. I paid the price."
The Boss ultimately pleaded guilty. And he later took to Twitter to offer an apology,
revealing that he entered a guilty plea, and claiming,
"I wanted to make this right. I learned an important lesson that
if you have even one drink you shouldn't drive."
Not long after he took over Carlo's,
Valastro could see that supermarkets were cutting into the bakeries' birthday cake business.
And that was the moment when he decided to think outside the box, telling Vanity Fair,
"So I said, I got to make cakes they'll never be able to make.
And that's when I went in the direction of making these crazy kind of cakes."
But of all Valastro's spectacular cakes, one holds the record as his most expensive:
the design he created for New York City socialite Devorah Rose in 2011 for her Diamond Gala charity
event. According to Market Watch, the cake was valued at a staggering $30 million,
thanks to its dazzling rubies, emeralds, sapphires, and flawless diamond jewelry.
Meanwhile, Valastro singled out a different bake as his all-time favorite:
his "Transformers" cake. According to Valastro, Bumblebee stood 12 feet tall and weighed 7,000
pounds. And it took a team of more than eight people a full three days to make it.
"We've made a lot of cakes in Carlo's Bakery history,
but I promise you — and I swear — this is the one that we're most proud of."
While Valastro has
fully demonstrated his talent for crafting jaw-dropping cakes, his skills as a sailor
apparently leave something to be desired. In 2014, a boating excursion went awry,
leaving Valastro and his passengers — including his wife, another couple,
and nine children — stranded at sea within a dense fog bank in New York Harbor. He recalled to CNN,
"People were scared. […] I didn't know which way to look — left,
right. I couldn't even see in front of me."
Finally, a New York Fire Department boat responded to Valastro's distress signal,
with a police boat arriving shortly after. Valastro said of the first responders,
"I want to bake them a cake. I want to do something good for them."
"Supporting the first responders is something near and dear to my heart."
Valastro's over-the-top cakes aren't
often a source of controversy. That is, until it came to a 400-pound cake replica of Wrigley Field,
crafted in honor of the venue's 100th anniversary. As the Los
Angeles Times reported, the cake had been on display throughout the day during a Cubs game,
before being moved to Chicago's Field Museum for a Cubs fundraising event that night. Having sat
around unrefrigerated for the full day, the cake was deemed to be inedible by museum personnel,
and was unceremoniously deposited via forklift into a dumpster.
"A massive collaboration of people making one mistake after the other."
Unfortunately, the guy in charge of disposing of the cake documented the process on Reddit,
resulting in a whole lot of ticked-off Cubs fans. In response, the Cubs issued a statement
declaring that the team was "disappointed" with how the cake was disposed of. And the museum
issued its own statement of remorse over what took place. But, as Valastro told the Chicago Tribune,
"[The Cubs] loved the cake. They felt bad those pictures
of the dumpster came out, but what can you do?"
One of the many perks of
Valastro's success involves having his own bowling alley in his home. But a fun family
day turned perilous in September 2020, when a pinsetter malfunctioned and impaled his hand.
Valastro shared the news on social media,
posting a photo on Instagram of himself and his injured hand while he lay in a
hospital bed. As a rep for the family stated, Valastro underwent two surgeries, adding,
"It will be an uphill battle as it's Buddy's dominant right hand
and he will need prolonged recovery and therapy."
"I'm so scared right now. This is my dominant hand. This is my piping hand."
A year later, the prognosis was good. During an appearance on "The Rachael Ray Show,"
Valastro revealed he had undergone a total of five surgical procedures.
Sharing that he was almost fully healed at the time, he admitted,
"It's definitely been an amazing ride."
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