Since Food Network gave him the boot in 2007, Emeril Lagasse has been in about a
dozen shows as either the star or a guest. Not all were successes, but he wants to be
remembered first and foremost as a restaurateur. This is the untold truth of Emeril Lagasse.
When Lagasse was just 10 years old, Carreiro's Bakery hired him for $1 an hour to wash pans,
according to CNN. Two years later, the bakers taught him how to bake bread, and at Carreiro's,
his passion for cooking was kindled. But Lagasse wasn't sure if he wanted to become
a chef because he also loved music just as much. He was a percussion major and played
drums with a local band, performing several nights a week throughout the school year.
As his high-school graduation got closer, the prestigious New England Conservatory of Music
offered Lagasse a full scholarship. But cooking inevitably won out over music,
and he turned it down. His mother was upset about his decision,
but his father encouraged him to go do what he loved, saying,
"If you think this is a way you can get a ticket out of here, then you go for it."
Lagasse enrolled in the culinary program at Johnson and Wales University in Providence,
Rhode Island, and paid his tuition by working at a local Italian restaurant,
where he met his first wife. He graduated in 1978 - and set out to France to hone his skills.
Lagasse soon found out that Parisian chefs were less than welcoming to a culinary-school graduate.
He returned to the U.S. and found work as a sous chef in Philadelphia and Boston.
In 1982, a recruiter sent Lagasse's resume to Ella Brennan,
the owner of Commander's Palace, a legendary New Orleans restaurant.
She rejected it because he lacked experience and was only 23 at the time. The recruiter persisted,
and Brennan agreed to interview him. She told Bon Appetit that at the time, she said,
"Okay, I'll bring him in. But I'm telling you right now, I don't think it's going to work."
When they met, Lagasse charmed Brennan by telling her that the Commander's Palace kitchen smelled
like his mother's kitchen. He cooked a meal for her and her brother, and they knew they
had found someone special. A few days later, the Brennans offered him the job. Brennan told CNN,
"Once Emeril got down here, we really had a chemistry."
The Brennans tutored Lagasse in Creole cuisine, and he began to experiment with the
restaurant's dishes by adding the Portuguese influences he'd learned from his mother.
After over seven years at Commander's Palace, Lagasse wanted to open his own restaurant.
He found an abandoned space in New Orleans' Warehouse District, which,
in 1990, was rundown. During the building's renovation, Lagasse locked himself in an
office for 15 hours a day writing and testing recipes. In an Eater interview, he said,
"Today those dishes kind of seem [...] okay. But if you think [back to] 25 years ago,
those dishes were so cutting-edge for New Orleans."
Emeril's opened to rave reviews and was selected by Esquire as
"Restaurant of the Year." The following year, Wine Spectator gave Emeril's the "Grand Award,"
and the James Beard Foundation dubbed Lagasse the "Best Chef South." Two years later,
Lagasse opened NOLA, again to glowing reviews. By 1993, executives at the new cable station,
Food Network, had heard of Lagasse and offered him a show, How to Boil Water.
By Lagasse's account, the show was terrible,
but Food Network recognized a potential superstar and gave him a new show, The Essence of Emeril.
Lagasse was able to loosen up and be more of himself. In 1997, Lagasse's skill and colorful
personality were showcased on Emeril Live, which combined Lagasse's two loves, cooking and music.
During the show's 10-year run, Lagasse's energy never flagged - he opened four restaurants and
wrote 10 cookbooks. In 2000, he signed a deal with B&G Foods to distribute Emeril's Original - a
signature line of seasonings, salad dressings, marinades, and pepper sauces - which he promoted
on Emeril Live. By 2005, Lagasse valued his empire at $150 million worth of business each year.
During the production of The Essence of Emeril, Lagasse shuttled back and forth between his
restaurants. To accommodate his schedule, the show had to shoot eight shows a day,
Sunday through Tuesday. Three or four shows were shot in the morning, and then the six-person
crew took their lunch break, devouring the rich meals that Lagasse had just prepared on the set.
When shooting resumed, he noticed that everyone was practically falling asleep.
After that, "bam!" became a regular catchphrase. He told Bon Appetit,
"Bam is just kinda me."
"Bam bam bam bam bam bam!"
According to the chef, people often yell "Bam!" at him when he's out in public.
In 2004, outside consultants reported to the new Food Network president, Brooke Johnson,
that cooking shows like Emeril Live were losing ratings to the more exciting competition shows,
like Iron Chef America and Top Chef. If Food Network was going to survive,
it would have to become less of the "Emeril Network."
Johnson still believed in her superstar chef and allocated hundreds of thousands
of dollars to overhaul Emeril Live with a new set and top-of-the-line equipment.
But in three years' time, the higher-energy shows were killing Emeril Live in ratings.
Also, the show was expensive to produce. Because of Lagasse's astronomical salary,
one episode of Emeril Live cost as much as a full 13-episode season of a new show. In 2007,
Johnson warned Lagasse that the direction of the network may be changing.
He knew his audiences were graying, but he believed the show would bounce back.
Network executives thought otherwise, and on December 11th,
2007, the last Emeril Live was shot. Johnson told The New York Times,
"All good things come to an end, and it was time to do something new."
A few weeks later, she informed Lagasse that Food Network was
also ending production of The Essence of Emeril.
Marketing head Susie Fogelson wanted to keep Lagasse at Food Network. She suggested to
Lagasse's agent that he compete on Iron Chef America, but his agent was against it, saying,
"We don't want to see Emeril in an aggressive situation like that."
Instead, Lagasse wanted to invite family-friendly guests, like Elmo from Sesame Street.
"Hello, hello….elmo!... Yaaaaaaaay!"
When Emeril Live got pulled, Lagasse retreated to New Orleans and worked as a line cook at
his restaurant. He was furious - and confused about why he'd been given the boot. He told GQ,
"When it ended, everybody felt like it was time for a little break.
I didn't necessarily think that."
Fogelson didn't want to give up on Lagasse, so she summoned him back to New York to discuss his
future with Food Network. Again, she proposed that he might pivot to a competition show.
But Lagasse wasn't having any of it, and he stormed out.
In 2005 Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, and Lagasse's three restaurants - Emeril's,
Delmonico, and NOLA - were severely damaged with over $2 million in losses from flooding and
looting. Compounded by the destruction of his home in Mississippi and cancellation of Emeril Live,
Lagasse was paddling through some rough financial waters.
But in 2008, Martha Stewart and her company came to the rescue
and bought the rights to Lagasse's culinary franchise, including his televisions shows,
cookbooks, Emeril-branded spices, and cookware for $45 million in cash and $5 million in stock.
Stewart considered their tastes and styles vastly different, but she told The New York Times,
"Being complementary and different is better than being competitive."
In an NBC interview, Lagasse said,
"She showed up at a time when I thought the whole ship might be going down."
After the deal was completed, Lagasse didn't seem
to regret relinquishing his cookbooks and licensed products to Stewart. He said,
"My little bit just fits into a corner of her empire. And I'm happy to be there."
"Somebody opened my cupboard the other day, and they said 'You have Emeril?' I said 'Of
course I have Emeril in my cupboard.' You're right there front and center."
In 2012, Lagasse, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia,
and Home Shopping Network were hit with a lawsuit for being, quote, "willfully and
maliciously engaged" in counterfeiting and selling knives supposedly made in Solingen,
Germany, a city renowned for its steel-forging since the 11th century. The lawsuit claimed that
the inferior knives were branded with Emeril's and Solingen's trademarks on one side of the blade,
and on the other side were marked "China" - where the knives were actually made, as Forbes reported.
The lawsuit further accused Lagasse, Stewart, and HSN of having been, quote, "unjustly enriched by
illegally using [the] Chamber's intellectual property" for their own financial gain.
Included in the complaint were several negative reviews from HSN consumers, one of whom wrote:
"That is terrible when a top chef
lies to you on TV. [...] Emeril cannot be trusted with what he advertises."
The Chamber sought damages of $2 million for each time Lagasse,
Stewart, and HSN infringed the Solingen trademark, totaling $24 million. The lawsuit was settled in
2014 for an undisclosed amount and, according to Today, a permanent injunction was put
against the group that prohibited them from selling products with the Solingen trademark.
In 2001, Lagasse was at the height of his TV fame, and Designing Women
creator Linda Bloodworth-Thomason whipped up a frothy sitcom for him. She explained,
"The plan was to put Lagasse in the middle of these loud,
mouthy Designing Women-types with great food."
NBC initially had high hopes for their new sitcom star, but during production,
it reportedly became apparent that the show had
problems. As Bloodworth-Thomason noted in The Hollywood Reporter,
"He was expected to become an actor overnight, and it just didn't work."
Lagasse was so accustomed to ad-libbing on Emeril Live that he couldn't keep to the script.
Emeril premiered two weeks after 9/11 - and reviews were
uniformly dreadful. One Los Angeles Times critic wrote,
"Sitcom anorexia. Lagasse, shmasse, dump this sucker fast."
The show failed to draw an audience, and although ten episodes were filmed,
Emeril was canceled after its seventh episode aired.
Lagasse married his third wife, former realtor Alden Lovelace, in 2000, and two years later,
they founded the Lagasse Foundation with the
intent of creating opportunities for children in disadvantaged situations.
Its mission statement is to help youth realize their full potential through culinary,
nutrition, and arts education. The Foundation has funded programs for teaching children how
to grow sustainable foods, and culinary and hospitality training in school cafeterias.
In 2005, after Katrina's devastation of New Orleans, the Lagasse Foundation created a
fundraising event, the Carnivale du Vin, which featured a high-end wine auction and walk-around
tastings by Lagasse's celebrity-chef friends. The inaugural event raised $1.4 million, the proceeds
of which were donated to organizations helping New-Orleans area children whose families had lost
their homes in the hurricane. The Carnivale du Vin has been an annual fundraiser since it began.
According to the official website, The Foundation continues to provide
funds to communities affected by natural disasters and to date has raised more
than $10 million and helped thousands of children in need. Most recently,
the Lagasse Foundation committed $500,000 to nonprofits supporting Covid-19 relief efforts.
Eventually Lagasse and his family left New Orleans behind and moved to Florida.
In 2013, The Cooking Channel and Food Network jointly premiered Lagasse's new television series,
Emeril's Florida, which spotlighted Florida's restaurants and cuisine, including his own.
Visit Florida shelled out $16 million - $12.7 million of which was taxpayer money - to promote
Florida tourism on the show. In 2017, after the show was canceled, the Florida House of
Representatives began an investigation into the show's finances. According to Politico,
the show's producer, MAT Media, reportedly received $1.25 million and Lagasse got $4 million.
MAT Media's owner, Pat Roberts, refused to turn over financial records,
claiming he could be sued, and the House issued a subpoena for them.
As of mid-2020, the investigation into Lagasse's and Roberts' payments is ongoing.
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