Warning: The following post contains allegations of sexual assault and cases of domestic violence and child abuse.
You wouldn’t expect a cable network as seemingly innocuous as Food Network to be beset by scandal. But many of its stars have landed in hot water — a rolling boil, not just a low simmer.
Below, find a timeline of our selections for Food Network’s biggest controversies.
2010: Juan-Carlos Cruz pleads no contest to murder for hire
Juan-Carlos Cruz, who hosted Calorie Commando on Food Network, pleaded no contest in October 2010 to charges of soliciting two homeless men to kill his wife Jennifer Campbell, and he was sentenced that December to nine years in a California prison, per CNN. Sources told CNN that Campbell was overwhelmed by fertility issues and may have wanted to end her life but believed suicide was a sin.
The network issued a statement at the time, saying Cruz “[had] not been under contract or associated with Food Network for a number of years.”
2011: Ina Garten declines Make-a-Wish request twice
In March 2011, Barefoot Contessa host Ina Garten got the nickname “Heartless Contessa” after fans learned she had twice denied 6-year-old cancer patient Enzo Pereda’s Make-a-Wish request to meet her.
Amid fan outcry, a spokesperson for Garten said the Food Network star was not able to accommodate the “approximately 100 requests [Garten received] a month to support charitable causes,” per ABC News. Garten eventually relented and invited Enzo to the set of her show, but the Pereda family declined the invitation.
2013: Paula Deen admits to using a racial epithet
Food Network fired Paula Deen in June 2013 after she revealed in a deposition for a sexual and racial discrimination lawsuit that she had “of course” used the N-word in the past. The deposition also exposed that Deen had wanted to plan a “true southern plantation-style wedding” for her brother, with Black servers, per NBC News.
In a video statement at the time, Deen apologized for the “inappropriate, hurtful language” which she called “totally, totally unacceptable.” Food Network, meanwhile, released a statement saying it would not renew Deen’s contract when it ended that month, according to the Los Angeles Times.
2017: The Pioneer Woman features an offensive exchange about “Asian hot wings”
In March 2017, the blog Thick Dumpling Skin highlighted a Season 2 episode of Food Network’s The Pioneer Woman in which star Ree Drummond pranks a group of men by presenting them with “Asian hot wings” instead of buffalo wings.
“Where are the real wings?” one man responded.
“I don’t trust ’em,” said another.
With a laugh, Drummond revealed a plate of buffalo wings. “I’m just kidding, guys,” she said. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”
Declaring that Food Network needed better Asian representation, the Thick Dumpling Skin bloggers wrote, “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 — like in this episode of The Pioneer Woman?”
2017: Mario Batali faces multiple sexual misconduct allegations
In December 2017, Eater reported that four women had alleged that celebrity chef Mario Batali had touched them inappropriately, leading Food Network to cancel plans to revive Batali’s TV show Molto Mario.
The chef said in a statement to Eater at the time that the behavior described in the allegations matched ways in which he had acted. “That behavior was wrong and there are no excuses,” he said. “I take full responsibility and am deeply sorry for any pain, humiliation, or discomfort I have caused to my peers, employees, customers, friends, and family.”
By January 2019, the New York Police Department closed three investigations into sexual assault allegations against Batali after not finding enough evidence to make an arrest, per The New York Times. In May 2022, a Boston Municipal Court judge found Batali not guilty of indecent assault and battery in a separate case, as the Times reported. And that August, Batali settled lawsuits from two women who alleged he had sexually assaulted them, including the woman whose claims were the subject of the May trial, per Reuters.
2018: Josh Denny drops racial epithets
Josh Denny, host of Food Network’s Ginormous Food, angered Twitter users in May 2018 by writing, “‘Straight white male’ has become this century’s N-word.”
Then Twitter users uncovered years-old tweets in which Denny had used the full epithet and made disparaging remarks about Asian women.
In an interview about the controversy on Van Lathan’s podcast, Denny uttered the epithet several more times, ignoring Lathan’s request for him to stop, according to the Associated Press.
Denny also stoked online ire three years later when he used a slur for women when discussing Texas’ abortion law, per Deadline. “For those asking: Our working relationship with Josh Denny ended years ago and we removed all episodes he hosted at that time,” Food Network tweeted at the time. “His views do not reflect our company values and we regret giving him a platform.”
2018: Andrew Zimmern makes controversial comments about Chinese restaurants
In an interview with Fast Company shared online in November 2018, Bizarre Foods host Andrew Zimmern said that by opening a Chinese restaurant in Minnesota, he was “saving the souls of all the people from having to dine at these horses**t restaurants masquerading as Chinese food that are in the Midwest.”
Zimmern’s comments sparked outrage. “The Midwest’s ‘horses**t restaurants are what paved the way for Zimmern’s venture and more broadly, Chinese cuisine in America,” wrote The Washington Post contributor Ruth Tam.
On Twitter user wrote, per NBC News, “So Andrew Zimmern basically called into question a Chinese guy’s Chinese-ness and authority to sell Chinese food — while promoting his own authority to sell Chinese food as a woke white guy.”
Zimmern apologized on Facebook, saying, “I am completely responsible for what I said, and I want to apologize to anyone who was offended or hurt by those sound bites.”
2020: Chad Barrett is accused of domestic violence
Guy’s Grocery Games contestant Chad Barrett was taken off Food Network’s schedule in June 2020 after seven women accused him of violence toward him ahead of his trial on other domestic abuse charges, per Deadline.
“When we read the local news reports about the current allegations against this contestant, we pulled both episodes that he appeared, so no re-airs could be scheduled,” a network spokesperson said in a statement at the time.
That December, Barrett was sentenced to 60 days of jail time, 15 months non-reporting probation, 40 hours of community service and a $500 fine after pleading no contest to a misdemeanor second offense of domestic violence, according to the Detroit Free Press.
2022: Ariel Robinson convicted of murdering a foster child
Ariel Robinson, a winner of Food Network’s Worst Cooks in America, was convicted in May 2022 of homicide by child abuse. A jury in Greenville County, South Carolina, found Robinson guilty in the beating death of her 3-year-old foster daughter, per People.
Robinson was sentenced to life in prison for the crime. Her husband, Jerry, was sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to homicide by child abuse/aiding and abetting, according to Greenville News.
2024: Darnell Ferguson indicted on strangulation and assault charges
In February 2024, SuperChef Grudge Match host Darnell Ferguson was indicted for first-degree burglary, first-degree strangulation, fourth-degree assault, third-degree terroristic threatening, menacing, and criminal mischief, following an alleged January 2 incident involving wife Tatahda Ferguson, per WDRB. He pleaded not guilty.
That April, Tatahda said the police had twisted her words. “Darnell is a good man!” she added in a news release sent by her attorney. “I have never felt unsafe or threatened by him, and he has always been an incredible father to our children. It hurts my heart the way he’s being vilified. I am coming forward to try and do what’s right to clear his name.”
The trial, however, is still slated to begin in May 2025. At a July 2024 court hearing for the case, Darnell said, “One thing for sure is that I am who I say I am. And I’ve been like that. Everyone who knows me knows that, and it’ll be proven in court in front of 12 people if it needs to be.”
If you or someone you know is the victim of sexual assault, contact the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network’s National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673). If you or a loved one are in immediate danger, call 911.
If you or someone you know is the victim of domestic abuse, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233.
If you or someone you know is the victim of child abuse, contact the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child (1-800-422-4453). If you or a loved one are in immediate danger, call 911.