Tragic Details About Rachael Ray

Vocal cord troubles She's the picture of effervescence  on TV, but in her personal life,   Rachael Ray has endured legal troubles,  destroyed homes, and painful family strife. Rachael Ray has one of the most recognizable faces   in the culinary world, but perhaps even  more recognizable is her iconic voice. "Oh my God. I'm not that much of a big mouth." But while that quality has endeared her  to plenty of fans, it's also related to   childhood illnesses that she suffered through.  Ray has been open about the fact that she   endured multiple instances of croup, a type  of infection that tightens the upper airway   and causes coughing and difficulty breathing. And  her vocal cord troubles continued into adulthood. In 2008, there were even rumors that she had  throat cancer. Those rumors turned out to be   false, but that isn't to say that Ray  was completely fine. A representative   for Ray told People Magazine in October 2008  that she needed surgery on her vocal cords,   but that it was just to remove a benign  cyst. The surgery took place in December   and Ray's tapings for Food Network  and her talk show went on as planned. Multiple muggings According to the New York City Police  Department, there were 1,417 instances   of robbery in the city in January 2024. Since New  York has a population of over 8 million people,   you only have about a 0.01% chance  of being mugged there. In general,   it would be fair to conclude then that  it's a relatively safe place to walk   around in. Nevertheless, Rachael Ray has been  mugged in New York on multiple occasions. As she admitted to People Magazine in 2007,  when she was working in Manhattan and living in   Queens in the late 1990s, she was mugged by the  same person twice in one week. The first time,   he assaulted her in her apartment's  foyer, prompting Ray to pull out her   mace. The second time, the assailant  was more forceful. As Ray recalled, "He dragged me down the alley and  beat the crap out of me with his gun." This prompted Ray to move back to the  Adirondacks section of upstate New York,   where she then began to work  managing restaurants on Lake George. Aunt's death If you're a fan of Rachael Ray, then you  surely know how important family is to her,   especially her mother Elsa, who  accompanied her daughter to her   first appearance on Today, which led to  Ray being noticed by the Food Network. But like many close-knit families, Ray's  has experienced their fair share of tragedy,   like in 2013 when her aunt Geraldine passed away  at the age of 77. Geraldine was house-sitting for   her niece in November when she went outside  to feed the birds and locked herself out of   the home. After trying to break a window  to get back inside, she collapsed in the   frigid temperatures and was discovered the  next day. Geraldine's daughter Gina blamed   her cousin for the death and negligence. She  also noted that her mother hadn't been given   her own key for the house-sitting and that  she likely collapsed due to lung issues. The family tension got even worse  when Ray didn't attend the funeral,   as she was taping a show at the time. Her  brother Manny later came to her defense   and claimed that no one else was upset  that she didn't show up to the funeral. Rachael Ray's husband John Cusimano gets nearly  as much attention as his wife does. An actor,   Infidelity accusations lawyer, producer, and musician, he  frequently accompanies on her shows,   at public events, and on her social media  accounts. They might even seem like the   definition of Couple Goals. They've  been married for nearly 20 years,   as they wed at a Tuscan castle in 2005 and renewed  their vows in the same venue in 2015. They've also   returned to the castle every year with family  and friends to celebrate their anniversary. "Here's my beautiful bride. Hi, honey." "Ciao! Happy anniversary." Despite all those happy traditions, this marriage  hasn't been without its share of trouble,   including rumors of infidelity.  One woman from Florida allegedly   met Cusimano in New York in 2000 and  carried on an affair with him for   years. Various publications have claimed  that he's cheated as many as six times,   but Ray has been having none of it. As  she insisted to People Magazine in 2007, "I've known where he is every  night since we've been married." If the rumors are indeed false, then this is  hardly the most tragic chapter in Ray's life,   but they're still a pain to deal with. Rachael Ray has been very vocal about her love of  her furry friends, especially her pit bull Isaboo,   Doggone litigation who passed away in 2020. So it's not surprising  that she eventually got into the canine culinary   game by launching a dog food brand called  Rachael Ray Nutrish. Not only does the brand   aim to offer nutritional, high-quality products  to pooches everywhere, but it also helps fund   The Rachael Ray Foundation, as portions from  the food's sales go to help animals in need. Unfortunately, though, Rachael Ray  Nutrish has been hit with lawsuits   on multiple occasions. In 2018, a complaint  was filed that claimed the brand contained   weed killer and shouldn't be promoted as  natural. The claim was dismissed at first   due to lack of specificity. Then it was amended  and refiled, before being dismissed yet again. "Rachael's camp says it's the  safest food on the market." Then in 2020, another lawsuit was filed  that claimed that testing revealed that   some of the brand's food turned up dog DNA  as one of the ingredients. There are only   six ingredients listed on the brand's labels,  but the suit alleged that it contained much   more than advertised. And yet another lawsuit  claimed that the food was potentially harmful   to dogs due to false advertising about its health  benefits, although this suit was also dismissed. Batali backlash Many celebrity chefs have taken hits to their  reputation after accusations of sexual misconduct,   and perhaps none more notoriously than Mario  Batali. He was one of the food world's most   famous and successful figures when multiple  women accused him of harassment in 2017. He   eventually settled two of the cases  and was found not guilty in another,   and since then he's mostly  faded away from public view. Rachael Ray is one of Batali's colleagues and  friends, and when she chose to publicly stand up   for him, she was unsurprisingly hit with backlash.  During a 2019 interview with NPR, Ray admitted   that she still spoke with her fellow Food Network  star but that she also hadn't asked him about the   accusations. The subject of the #MeToo movement  also came up in that interview, as Ray explained, "I think I've always been treated  extremely fairly at work, yeah. Do   we speak inappropriately in kitchens, men and  women? Both of us do [...] That doesn't mean   I'm not super empathetic and supportive of women  in the industry that have gone through hell." Ultimately, this was probably a case  of Ray being adjacent to tragedy,   rather than enduring the brunt of the  tragedy herself. But it demonstrates   how wide-ranging the consequences are when it  comes to a pattern of inappropriate behavior. The flip side of a legion of adoring fans  is the people who just can't stand you.   Enduring criticism And Rachael Ray certainly hasn't  been immune to this phenomenon,   as she's endured more than her fair share  of criticism from those who don't exactly   agree with her culinary methods. There's an  even online blog called "Rachael Ray Sucks."   But it's not just strangers on the internet  who have expressed their ire. It's also some   of her colleagues. For example, in a 2009  interview with ABC, Martha Stewart said, "She professed that she cannot bake.  She just did a new cookbook which is   just a re-edit of a lot of her old recipes." "That's not good enough for me." Much of this criticism seems to stem from  Ray's fast and easy approach to cooking,   which is arguably what made her famous in  the first place. The late Anthony Bourdain   was one of her fiercest critics,  as he once told Time Magazine, "She genuinely offends me [...] When Rachael  tells you that it's perfectly okay to buy   pre-chopped onion from the supermarket ...  I mean, how hard is it to chop an onion?" And Emeril Lagasse reportedly once said, "[She] doesn’t know anything about food." However, that beef seems like  it was eventually quashed,   as Lagasse frequently appeared on Ray's talk show. Ghostwriting accusations With more than 20 cookbooks to her name, Rachael  Ray has published hundreds of recipes. That number   might even go into the thousands when you also add  up her recipes that have been published online or   in magazines. It's probably fair to think  that she didn't create every single one of   those entirely on her own. But some industry  insiders have accused her of much worse. In 2012, The New York Times published a story  called "I Was a Cookbook Ghostwriter," which   claimed that many celebrity chefs, including  Rachael Ray, aren't actually writing their   own recipes or cookbooks. Afterwards, Ray  responded on an episode of her talk show, "This is how I spend the little  time at home I have with my family,   I spend in front of these little notebooks,  in front of the computer. It sort of takes   away from all of that to not be able  to call that writing—of course that's   writing. It doesn't mean you don't value  the people who write the glossary or that   help organize the pantry or that work on a  project, but a writer is still a writer." A bad host? When Rachael Ray was launched as part of  the daytime TV lineup, a live audience was a   crucial component. However, despite Ray's hard  work and endless hours devoted to her shows,   some people have claimed that she's not that  great a host when the cameras stop rolling. Tripadvisor reviews of the show's taping  experience are a mixed bag, with some thoroughly   enjoying their time there, and others saying  things like "don't get your hopes up." One unhappy   audience member from 2019 even said that she  felt sorry for Ray's colleagues while claiming, "She acted like someone who did not  want to be there and seemed in a foul   mood. For heaven's sake, if it's too  much, why continue with your show?" But Ray probably isn't too worried about those  negative reviews. Her talk show wrapped up in   2023, and she's gone on to focus on other TV  projects, such as Rachael Ray's Rebuild on Hulu. House fire Rachael Ray's Rebuild focuses on people  who have experienced a tragedy similar   to one that Ray herself experienced: the  destruction of her Adirondack home from   a fire in 2020. She had helped design and  build the home in Lake Luzerne, New York,   that ultimately succumbed to  a devastating chimney fire. "I ran upstairs to get medicine, my  notebooks, my mother's high school ring." Ray lost many sentimental items in the  fire, so when she set out to rebuild,   she tried to make the new home as much  like the old one as possible. But she   ultimately had to make some changes to  safeguard against another potential fire,   such as adding a tin roof. While this loss  was surely emotionally devastating for Ray,   she had plenty of opportunities to move  forward and look on the bright side of   things. In addition to rebuilding this house,  she also purchased a home in Tuscany in 2021. Apartment flooding As if a massive house fire weren't enough tragedy  to deal with, Rachael Ray had another disaster   arrive on her doorstep in September 2021 when  Hurricane Ida struck New York City. While Ida   wasn't quite a technical hurricane when it struck  the city, the post-tropical cyclone still broke   rainfall records in NYC, causing millions  in damage and more than a dozen fatalities.   It also damaged more than 3 percent of the  city's buildings, including Ray's apartment. Ray revealed to People Magazine  that the storm completely wiped   out the recently renovated apartment,  including the speaker in the ceiling,   the fireplace, and all of the  seams in the wall. As she put it, "It was like the apartment just literally melted." When a remediation team  attempted to assess the issue,   they broke a water pipe, which  flooded the apartment once again,   along with the entire building down to the  ground level. But by the 2021 holiday season,   Ray was back in the apartment for Christmas  and showing off her décor on her talk show.