It would be easy to expect most of what goes on behind the scenes of the Food Network to
be pretty wholesome, but that's not the case.
It turns out that TV chefs get up to all sorts of Kitchen Confidential-type stuff, and it's
pretty scandalous.
Mexican chef Marcela Valladolid has appeared on several Food Network shows including her
own Mexican Made Easy and a long-running stint on The Kitchen, while British celeb chef Paul
Hollywood is best-known as a judge of The Great British Bake Off.
In 2013, they collaborated on-screen, judging The American Baking Competition.
They became quite cozy off-screen as well, indulging in a brief fling that nevertheless
had some serious fallout.
Hollywood's wife filed for divorce, and Vallodolid and her husband also divorced.
Vallodolid's TV show hosting jobs fizzled, and she's moved on in her personal life.
Hollywood, on the other hand, still has a thriving career, judging Bake Off and hosting
cooking shows for various TV networks including the Cooking Channel.
On the domestic front, however, things have gone pretty far south since he and his fling
parted.
While his wife eventually welcomed him back after the affair, she booted him out again
a few years later when he got caught kissing a cooking show contestant.
Rachael Ray has gone way beyond celebrity chef to one-woman powerhouse: TV host, author,
entrepreneur, and champion of all animals in need.
In fact, she's so into doggos that she created a very special food with her own beloved pooch
in mind, and a portion of the profits are donated to her own Rachael Ray Foundation,
with the ultimate goal of helping animals in need.
Well, what about animals who have become ill from ingesting suspicious chemicals?
Chemicals, perhaps, found among the "natural" ingredients in Ray's "Nutrish" line of pet
foods?
A $5 million lawsuit filed in 2018 alleges that Nutrish foods contain glyphosate, an
herbicide used to make weed-killers such as Roundup.
Rachael Ray herself was not named in the lawsuit, and claimed to be feeding Nutrish to her own
dog despite the controversy.
Petsmart, one of the brand's biggest retailers, didn't drop Ray or her product line, but did
issue a statement that it would be closely monitoring the situation.
The lawsuit was eventually dismissed, but this most recent issue, on top of other earlier
complaints, poor reviews and even recalls of Ray's pet food products, indicate that
she might not be such an animal nutrition guru, after all.
To everyone who watched Down Home With the Neelys during its 11-season run on the Food
Network, Pat and Gina seemed like the perfect couple, living and working and cooking side-by-side.
But then, all of a sudden, game over.
Marriage over, show over - even their restaurants closed down.
What could have caused this sudden, total Neely-pocalypse?
In a 2018 interview with People Magazine, Gina revealed that her 20-year marriage had
grown stale and that she'd actually planned to leave Pat before they were offered the
TV show.
According to Gina, the pressure of having to fake a happy relationship when she was
just no longer feeling it finally caused her to crack.
In 2014, she grabbed her bags and headed out the door, and after that, only her lawyers
did the talking with Pat.
"The crazy part about it was, I never wanted to do that show.
I never wanted to live my life quite out loud like that.”
While the divorce was rough on Pat at first, he's since rebounded with a new wife and kids.
Gina, the reluctant TV star, has gone a different route, appearing in a reality dating show
on the Bravo network called To Rome For Love.
Down Home With the Neelys, however, lives on in perpetuity, thanks to the magic of reruns
- even though we now know it was all a sack of lies.
While Jamie Oliver used to be the host of a show called The Naked Chef, he never actually
stripped down for the camera, so no scandal there.
But more recently, he's taken a massive marketing misstep that got quite a few people pretty
upset with him: he released a product called "punchy jerk rice," with its name and flavoring
supposedly inspired by traditional Jamaican cooking.
Well, the problem with this product is threefold: Oliver isn't Jamaican, the recipe he uses
isn't really all that Jamaican either, and actually, "jerk rice" isn't even a thing — jerk
is a spice rub used to flavor meat.
Protests came from all over, including a Jamaican chef who said he taught Oliver how to make
authentic jerk chicken.
British MP Dawn Butler, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, called Oliver's product an act
of cultural appropriation.
While Oliver tried to explain away his misstep by saying his intent was just to pay homage
to the flavor's inspiration, many in the Jamaican community still think he's the real jerk.
Alton Brown's not an easy guy to figure out.
On the one hand, he seems to want to come across as a man of the people, explaining
cooking in terms just about anyone could understand.
On the other hand, he cultivates a persona that he describes as, quote, "evilicious,"
and has been known to make insensitive remarks about not only his fellow chefs but also some
of his fans, particularly those in the plus-sized contingent.
On one occasion, he was speaking in front of an Iowa audience and did anything but wow
the crowd according to one blogger.
In fact, he left many of them speechless, not knowing what to make of remarks that came
across as racist and homophobic.
He then went on to compound his insensitivity by delivering a big ol' slap in the face to
everyone who works in the restaurant industry, bragging about a time he bullied a North Carolina
restaurant into making an item not on the menu by threatening to come back into the
kitchen.
News of his comments made waves on blogs, social networks, and forums where word spreads
fast.
"Champagne.
In victory, you deserve it.
In defeat, you need it.”
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