The 12 Worst Food Network Scandals You Forgot About
It's right there in the name, after all — Food Network is cable TV's top destination for all things edible and culinary. With a mix of educational and instructional cooking shows, cooking oriented game shows, cooking based reality shows, and travel shows centered on terrific restaurants, Food Network has explored, shared, and celebrated most everything there is about eating.
Food Network became a household name and a definitive specialty media outlet because it has consistently hired people who make good television — chefs, food writers, restaurateurs, and some of the biggest celebrities with a passion for preparing and serving meals. While that's provided a wonderful variety of perspectives on the subject matter, it has also made for a lot of moving parts. And whenever more people are involved in something, the likelihood for chaos or a bad apple increases. Every so often, a seemingly jovial and above-board Food Network personality will get themselves in trouble by saying something they shouldn't say, doing something they shouldn't do, or just flat out breaking the law. Here are the most scandalous controversies to ever tarnish the good name of the Food Network.
1. Ree Drummond's hot wings prank was deemed racially insensitive
Ree Drummond's blog about her traditional, down home life on a rural Oklahoma cattle ranch proved so popular that Food Network gave her a show: "The Pioneer Woman." In a Season 2 episode, "The Big Game," Drummond made special snacks for her husband and his friends to enjoy while they watched their college's football team play. One selection was Asian hot wings. When she presented them, the guys seemed annoyed. "Where are the real ones?" one guy wondered, while another said "I don't trust 'em." But it was all apparently in jest — Drummond had pulled a food prank. "I'm just kidding guys. I wouldn't do that to you," she said before handing over a tray of classic wings. "Now those are some wings," a relieved guy proclaimed.
Thick Dumpling Skin is a website and podcast that addresses Asian American issues, and after "The Big Game" was rebroadcasted in 2017, they tweeted a clip of the wings scene, captioning it, "Hey, Food Network — this anti-Asian sentiment being promoted on 'The Pioneer Woman's' show really isn't cool." The Thick Dumpling Skin blog covered the incident in detail: "Why must we watch non-Asian cooks who can't pronounce 'Sriracha' and don't have a chopstick drawer show us how to make our own dishes? And how come, when they do, we have to watch as their entire family mocks it?" Food Network resisted calls to take the episode out of circulation.
2. Ina Garten refused to make a wish come true
The long-running series of "Barefoot Contessa" shows are named after the gourmet food market in the Hamptons that host Ina Garten once operated. She's cooked dinner party food, and for her beloved husband Jeffrey, for decades. Enzo Pereda was a huge Garten fan, and according to ABC News, he was diagnosed with leukemia at age three. During long periods of convalescence over a three-year span, episodes of "Barefoot Contessa" delighted him. So, when the Make-A-Wish Foundation extended an invite to Pereda, he put in a request in 2010 to make a meal together with Garten. But Garten said it wasn't a good time, as she was busy with a book tour. Pereda and Make-a-Wish asked Garten again in 2011, and this time she fully declined the request.
Pereda's mother blogged about how the star of "Barefoot Contessa" refused to spend a couple of hours making a meal with a very ill child, and the story went so viral and brought Garten so much bad publicity that she offered Pereda a chance to visit the set of "Barefoot Contessa." Her team also offered an explanation for the initial rejections. "Ina receives approximately 100 requests a month to support charitable causes," the statement read. "Sadly, it's of course not possible to do them all."
This time around, it was the Peredas who declined. "We're not going to do it," father Adrian Pereda said. "We just want to go on with our life."
3. The impossible resume of the host of Dinner: Impossible
"Dinner: Impossible" hit Food Network in 2007, and it was starkly different from the channel's usual fare of cooking shows. This was a reality series in which tough guy chef Robert Irvine faced real-world, stressful, challenging missions, like cooking for a group of food historians with only tools and ingredients available in the 18th century, or making a meal for hundreds of people in a few hours. Irvine almost always succeeded because he had the kind of resume that indicated excellence and expertness, as he spoke about cooking for multiple American presidents and helping to bake the cake for the 1981 wedding of Princess Diana and Prince Charles — the latter which resulted in a knighthood for the chef, per The New York Times.
In 2008, just a year into the run of "Dinner: Impossible," the Tampa Bay Times exposed Irvine as a liar. Many of those impressive feats about which he frequently bragged simply weren't true. The knighthood was a complete fabrication, for example. "I was sitting in a bar one night and that came out. It was stupid." Other media outlets looked into Irvine's background and found more fibs — according to BBC News, he'd picked the fruit for Princess Diana's cake, but he didn't bake it. And as far the claim to have cooked for four presidents, the closest Irvine came was making meals for the U.S. Navy. Food Network fired Irvine from "Dinner: Impossible," but after a year, brought him back.
4. A Food Network Star finalist lied about his experience
"Food Network Star" (known in its earliest iterations as "The Next Food Network Star") was the Food Network's answer to "American Idol" or "The Voice," giving a shot at TV fame to up-and-coming cooks, chefs, and food personalities. Some well-known Food Network people who won past seasons of the show include Guy Fieri and Jeff Mauro, while Joshua Adam Garcia, aka Chef JAG, almost joined that rarified crowd, finishing in second place in Season 3 of "The Next Food Network Star" in 2007. But before the final vote could be readied between JAG and fellow finalist Rory Schepisi, according to The Orange County Register, Garcia abruptly withdrew from the competition, sending previously eliminated Amy Finley back into contention.
Garcia's self-knockout came a few weeks after the Army Times (via Reality TV World) published a report finding that Garcia had lied to the show's producers and viewers about his cooking background and military service record. Not only had he not graduated from the New York Restaurant School, he hadn't spent two years as an infantry soldier, and he hadn't served in Afghanistan either. After an investigation by Food Network confirmed the Army Times' findings, Garcia was forced to tender his resignation from "The Next Food Network Star."
5. Paula Deen's history of racially insensitive behavior emerged
There haven't been too many Food Network stars as impactful as Paula Deen. On "Paula's Home Cooking," the Georgia-based caterer and cook prepared traditional Southern favorites, unabashedly full of butter, sugar, and fat, and she charmingly joked around as she did, often bringing in her sons and fellow Food Network stars Bobby and Jamie Deen.
The grandmotherly Deen also ran a number of restaurants in Georgia, and in 2013, Lisa Jackson the former manager of one of those outlets filed a discrimination lawsuit, alleging a work environment where inappropriate and racially-insensitive commentary were regular occurrences, according to Today. Deen sat for a deposition, and under questioning admitted that in the past she had used the N-word. "That's just not a word that we use as time has gone on," she attested. According to E!, Deen admitted that one of the more audacious charges in Jackson's lawsuit had indeed happened — she'd planned a wedding and suggested employing Black men to dress like slaves to give the event an extra bit of old-time Southern authenticity.
When the deposition hit the news, Food Network released a statement denouncing discrimination and a promise to investigate the matter. Deen canceled a long pre-arranged "Today" appearance and then released a YouTube apology video. Hours later, Food Network announced that it would cease doing business with Deen any longer, parting ways with her after broadcasting her show for 11 years.
6. A winner of Worst Cooks in America killed a child
It's ironic that a TV channel built on the talents of great chefs would have a hit about people who can't cook. "Worst Cooks in America" is a Food Network mainstay, broadcasting 25 seasons' worth of woeful home cooks who go through culinary boot camp, learn to do better, and compete in a series of challenges to prepare chef-quality meals and win cash and prizes in the process.
In August 2020, South Carolina cook Ariel Robinson won Season 20 of "The Worst Cooks in America," securing a suite of kitchen equipment and a check for $25,000, according to People. Sadly, just six months after Robinson won a reality TV show and enriched herself with cooking skills and money, she and her husband were arrested and charged with homicide via child abuse. According to the Greenville News, three-year-old Victoria Smith, a child in the South Carolina foster care system, died while living with the Robinsons. Jerry Robinson alleged that his wife frequently and severely abused the child, his statements matching up with a coroner's report citing blunt force injuries as a cause of death. In her defense, the reality star claimed that Smith died because she drank too much water. In 2022 (via WSPA), a court found Robinson guilty and sentenced her to life in prison. According to Today, Food Network pulled the entirety of "Worst Cooks in America" Season 20 from circulation, including online outlets.
7. The Calorie Commando tried to hire contract killers
With its cooking shows, Food Network tries to create a programming lineup with something for everyone, and in the mid-2000s it catered to people looking to eat lighter or lose weight with "Calorie Commando," hosted by former pastry chef Juan-Carlos Cruz. According to the Los Angeles Daily News (via the South Florida Sun-Sentinel), he showed viewers how to make low-fat, calorie-reduced versions of favorite dishes with tips and tricks he learned after shedding 100 pounds. "Calorie Commando" ran for two years and generated a cookbook authored by the amiable Cruz, who off camera got up to some very dark and troubling activities. In May 2010, according to CBS Los Angeles, police arrested Cruz in Santa Monica, California, after he reportedly tried to hire two unhoused men, David Walters and David Carrington, to kill his wife for the sum of $500. According to CNN, one of the two men told police, who set up a sting operation and secured footage of Cruz trying to arrange the hit once more and driving the men to his residence where he'd give them instructions on how to gain entry to his wife's home.
Cruz entered a no contest plea to the charge of solicitation of murder, while Los Angeles County prosecutors dropped an attempted murder charge. In 2010, Cruz received a sentence of nine years in prison.
8. A Food Network personality got caught stealing recipes
In 2010 and 2011, Food Network aired two seasons of "Dessert First," a cooking instructional program devoted to the most luxurious and decadent of sweet treats. The host, Anne Thornton, who trained at the Institute of Culinary Education (via her Food Network bio), worked as a personal chef, and served as a pastry chef at two of New York City's most acclaimed high-end restaurants of the 2000s, The Waverly Inn and Hotel Griffou.
On "Dessert First," Thornton seemingly used her training and experience to create world-class treats on TV, like "Pumpkin Maple Cheesecake"," Apple Cider Beignets," and "Other Worldly Sticky Buns." As it turns out, she had other sources of inspiration: Martha Stewart and Ina Garten. According to a 2012 report in the New York Post, Food Network executives discovered that some of Thornton's recipes were almost entirely copied from those published and distributed by those other TV food personalities and cookbook authors. For example, Thornton's "German Chocolate Cupcakes" frosting recipe was a near facsimile of Stewart's "Coconut-Pecan Frosting" from 2009, and her "Luscious Lemon Squares" cribbed off a similar Garten recipe.
While Season 2 of "Dessert First" was in production, Food Network higher-ups discovered the plagiarism and went back and noticed more examples in Season 1, but denied that's why they didn't order a Season 3. "Anne's show, 'Dessert First,' was not renewed after its second season purely due to ratings," a network spokesperson said.
9. Accused of misconduct, John Besh was erased from Iron Chef
In the 2000s and 2010s, chef and TV personality John Besh acted as an ambassador of his food specialty: traditional and classic New Orleans-style cuisine. He showed off his skills and knowledge on multiple Food Network shows, including "Iron Chef America," "The Next Iron Chef," "The Best Thing I Ever Ate," and "The Kitchen."
In October 2017, The Times-Picayune, the newspaper of record in Besh's home base of New Orleans, published the results of an eight-month investigation. The findings: 25 employees of Besh's restaurants, past and present, reported being victims of sexual harassment and/or unwanted touching, as well as enduring inappropriate behavior from others in a workplace environment where such things were tolerated or encouraged by management. Within a week of the allegations going public, per The Times-Picayune, Besh resigned from his company, the Besh Restaurant Group, which operated 12 eateries at the time.
And then food television weighed in. According to the The Washington Post, producers at Bravo's "Top Chef," where Besh had frequently appeared as a guest judge, digitally deleted the chef from a yet-to-air episode. Food Network similarly directed editors to remove Besh from an episode of "Iron Chef Showdown," where he'd served as a judge.
10. Bobby Flay's divorce was public and contentious
There's arguably no bigger name in Food Network history than Bobby Flay, who first appeared on the channel in 1996 with "Grillin' & Chillin,'" the first of roughly 20 shows that would bear his name. Flay embraced the celebrity in celebrity chef, and he was frequently seen out and about with his wife, "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" star Stephanie March, who also occasionally assisted her husband on his cooking programs.
The Flay-March professional arrangement broke down forever in 2015 when their personal relationship fizzled out, with Flay filing for divorce. In the documents, according to TMZ, Flay wrote that the marriage had "broken down irretrievably." But Page Six published some more specific details about why Flay and March split. In late 2014, March reportedly found out that her husband had carried on a three-year affair with Elyse Tirrell, an employee of Flay's restaurant Bar Americain who he'd promoted to the role of personal assistant.
The divorce would be settled by the courts, and in June 2015, per HuffPost, Flay became the first celebrity chef to get his own star on The Hollywood Walk of Fame. The ceremony was laced with potential embarrassment for Flay, however: During his acceptance speech, a hired plane flew over the crowd pulling a banner that read "CHEATER."
11. A cupcake maker sued Food Network for stealing her ideas
TV companies spend a lot of time and money giving the people what they want, and Food Network viewers clearly love shows about cake. Food Network has produced and aired a great many shows about novelty cake creation — "Ace of Cakes," "Cake-Off," "Cake Wars," "Last Cake Standing," and "World Cake Championship," among others, while also venturing into the online sector with videos about cake on various social media platforms. In late 2016, according to Vice, Food Network's Facebook page shared a video about how to make cupcakes that looked like snow globes, made with the aid of gelatin sheets.
Enter Elizabeth Blau, pastry chef and proprietor of the popular baking website SugarHero. In 2014, she published a recipe for snow globe cupcakes that attracted so many viewers it crashed the website. In 2016, Blau turned the recipe into a step-by-step video on how to make snow globe cupcakes, according to The Hollywood Reporter, and in three weeks it racked up more than five million viewers.
Blau, who relies on advertising revenue to keep SugarHero running, filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Food Network and its corporate partners in 2017.
12. Misconduct allegations from restaurant employees lost Mario Batali his Food Network show
According to the New York Post, Mario Batali was a rising star in the competitive New York City restaurant scene in 1996 when he received nationwide attention as one of the very first Food Network on-air personalities. He hosted the Italian cooking show "Molto Mario" until the channel canceled it in 2007, but he remained an occasional presence on "Iron Chef" programs while appearing in scores of food programming elsewhere, including as a co-host of the ABC daytime panel talk show "The Chew."
In November 2017, according to Variety, Food Network and Batali announced an official reunion with a "Molto Mario" revival. Just one month later, Food Network canceled the new show before any episodes aired, while ABC cut Batali from "The Chew," too. This was the fallout of an exposé published by Eater New York, wherein four former employees of Batali's restaurants accused the chef and restaurateur of inappropriate and unwelcome touching of a sexual nature. After the allegations came to light and the ramifications set in, Batali apologized (according to Time) through his email newsletter. "I have made many mistakes and I am so very sorry that I have disappointed my friends, my family, my fans, and my team," he wrote, before attaching a recipe for "Pizza Dough Cinnamon Rolls."