If you’re a fan of Food Network, there’s no way you don’t know the face of Giada De Laurentiis, the Italian chef and television personality who’s been cooking up sizzling, cheesy dishes for fans since 2003. But the star is so much more than her meal creations, which you’ll learn throughout this article.
And even though she’s all smiles during filming, she deals with some genuine issues just like everyone else. But she’s pushed through it all to come out as one of the biggest names in the business. Here’s more on the life of Giada De Laurentiis…
Family Full of Stars
Fame isn’t new to Giada De Laurentiis. In fact, she grew up in a household full of professional entertainers, thanks to her mother and father, who worked as actors themselves.
But the entertainment-bug went even further back to Giada’s grandfather, Dino De Laurentiis, who’s known for his incredible abilities as a producer in the past. But even though Giada is perfectly comfortable in front of the camera, she decided to pursue her own passions instead of following in the footsteps of mom and dad.
During Her Youth
Giada had zero interest in pursuing a career in Hollywood during her younger years. Perhaps it was due to watching mom and dad stress over lines and auditions, but she, like most teenagers, wanted to find herself and figure out a path that worked for her.
The path she chose wound up taking her through the University of Central Los Angeles in the mid-1960s. When she was a kid and living with her parents, she was actually using a different name: Giada Pamela De Benedetti.
Battling Bullying
Like so many children, Giada found herself the target of harsh words and other forms of bullying by kids in her school when she first moved to the country. She was having a tough time because she didn’t speak much English and couldn’t communicate with her classmates very well.
This led to her being called all sorts of mean nicknames and eating lunches on her lonesome. She found the strength within her family, who stood behind her and helped her overcome the negativity, and she’s praised them publicly numerous times for it.
Grandpa and Friend
Giada’s grandpa, Dino De Laurentiis, was famous long before the first time anyone saw his granddaughter cook up an amazing-looking Italian dish on TV. He was also one of the main people in her life who helped her deal with all of the bullying during her childhood. In the 1980s, he opened up a restaurant of his own: DSDL Foodshow in New York.
Among the crowds who gathered to eat an array of food that spanned from pasta and pizzas to fully stuffed pigs and more, Giada found her true calling. Food is in her blood in more ways than one.
UCLA
People who know exactly what they want out of life before they’ve even headed off to college are lucky: they get a jump-start and can chip away at their life path from a young age. When Giada headed to UCLA, she knew that she had a passion for food, but she still wasn’t thinking of pursuing it as a full-time career.
She knew she wanted to earn her degree and be successful in the future, but she wasn’t entirely sure what she wanted to major in. Thus, she started on her way to a degree in social anthropology.
At school, like most students, they weren’t exactly dining on four-course meals. Date nights usually consisted of pizza or canned goods – the college diet! But there was plenty of amazing food in their future.
At school, like most students, they weren’t exactly dining on four-course meals. Date nights usually consisted of pizza or canned goods – the college diet! But there was plenty of amazing food in their future.
Changing Course
When Giada graduated from UCLA in the ‘90s, it was with a degree in anthropology. Still, she would always help out in her grandfather’s restaurant and just knew that was the career she wanted to pursue herself. So, after UCLA, she chose to apply to the world-famous Le Cordon Bleu chef’s academy – and she was accepted.
So, she packed her bags and made the move to Paris, where she would begin what would ultimately be her dream job. But moving to another country and diving into studying wouldn’t be an easy feat.
Pastries and Cuisine
Le Cordon Bleu offers several prestigious cooking courses for blossoming five-star chefs, but Giada chose to go with a course that led her to specialize in patisserie and cuisine. Basically, it means that she was trained in excellence in all sorts of sweet and savory dishes!
The course, which is called Le Grand Diplome, provides classic chef training and pastry training. While you may think that being a part of this course means eating plenty of pastries and pasta, she wound up losing 10 pounds (the opposite of the Freshman 15?) during her studies.
Heading Back
Once she’d completed her training in the Le Grand Diplome at Le Cordon Bleu, it was time for her to return to Los Angeles. Now, she was armed with the schooling and skills she needed to succeed as a professional chef – but she probably had no idea that she would wind up becoming one of the most famous faces on the Food Network!
But first, she had to get her foot in the door in terms of working behind-the-scenes in fine dining establishments. And that’s exactly what happened when Wolfgang Puck adopted her as his mentee.
Getting Noticed
After she began working for Wolfgang Puck in his restaurant, Spago, she felt better, but she knew that there was still something missing in her life. She was on the right path, but she still had a way to go to create her perfect career.
But when a Food Network executive noticed her in a magazine feature on her family, he made the call that would change her life forever. The executive thought that she would be not only a fabulous cook but also a great personality for the network – and boy, were they right!
Her First Show
The first venture that Giada had with the Food Network was her show, “Everyday Italian,” which premiered in 2003. The show focuses on sharing her updates to old family recipes and culinary secrets while showing viewers how to easily put together satisfying weeknight meals that can please two or an entire crowd.
She has since described the first season as “horrible,” but only because she was so nervous to start filming! When they offered her the gig, she wasn’t initially thrilled. In fact, she turned it down before accepting. So what was it that changed her mind, then?
A Big Year
Giada certainly had a ton of stuff going on in 2003! Not only was she appearing on TV for the very first time in her own major network cooking show, but she was also making another serious change in her life. By that point, she and Todd Thompson had been together for a decade when they decided it was time to tie the knot.
Giada loved cooking him his favorite meals. Can you imagine having a professional chef around who likes to cook for you just to make you happy? Unfortunately, the honeymoon phase wouldn’t last forever.
Big Girls Don’t Cry
During one extraordinary episode of the cooking show “Iron Chef America,” Giada showed up to battle it out with fellow TV chef Bobby Flay. The two were thrilled to be cast into the project together since they were good friends – that is, until the show, anyway. Giada takes her cooking – and her competition – very seriously.
Maybe, a little too seriously, since she refused to talk to Flay for over eight months after they lost against Rachael Ray and Mario Batali. She blamed her co-chef for the loss, and things went south fast.
Out of the Public Eye
It must be pretty hard to be a celebrity and have people all up in your business everywhere you go, no matter what you’re trying to do. This would be especially true when it comes to maintaining a romantic relationship, which takes an enormous amount of effort, even without the added stress of paparazzi and mobs of people.
That’s why Giada, like so many celebrities, tries her best to keep her private life private. She did just that during her relationship with Todd Thompson, but it wasn’t always easy.
Stage Fright
While Giada may be known for her incredible Italian cooking, her bubbly, wide smile is another of her trademarks. But she wasn’t always so comfortable on camera, and being so extroverted on camera wasn’t something that came easy to her at the beginning of her career on Food Network.
She was so focused on her cooking and trying to think about what she said that she didn’t smile very much. Producers had to remind her to do so, no matter how she happened to be feeling during filming. She’s obviously grown much more comfortable in time.
Say Cheese
When you’re on TV regularly for a living, it’s important to maintain the image that you’re portraying. In Giada’s case, since she’s known for being warm and friendly, that means keeping a killer smile by making sure your pearly whites stay pearly white, which she does by using a teeth whitening solution.
She has a beauty routine that includes many natural, DIY treatments, including a face mask that she mixes up out of olive oil (for moisturizing) and baking soda for a bit of exfoliation. Whatever she does seems to be working; her skin always appears to be glowing!Eating Her Creations
Giada doesn’t just love to cook up incredible Italian food, which oftentimes means delicious, carb-loaded dishes oozing with cheese and plenty of calories. And, while she may taste her creations, she probably isn’t going to eat a whole lot of any of them. In fact, the bites that you see her take on the show don’t really end up being swallowed at all.
She keeps a spit bucket nearby during filming, and after she takes the bite and chews for a while, all of that found winds up in the spit bucket. She does love desserts, though – especially chocolate cake.
Working Out
But how does she get away with eating cake and still stay fit? That’s easy. She keeps herself in shape by exercising regularly and eating in moderation. “I’ve had to take care of myself more rigorously,” she told “Shape” magazine. The main form of exercise Giada practices is yoga, which she really got into after her daughter’s birth.
She wanted a nice way to stretch and just be active, but it wound up strengthening her muscles, and she started doing it more and more. Meditation is also a vital part of her self-care routine.
Taking the Cake
When the Food Network star does decide to enjoy a nice, moist slice of chocolate cake, she eats it a bit differently than most. Actually, the way she eats it sounds like it takes a lot of effort, and she says it’s “like a scavenger hunt.”
She apparently eats all of the icing on the outside of it first thing and then peels off the cake layers and eats the icing layers in the middle. But for the most part, when the craving for sweets hits, she’ll try to reach for something a bit healthier and/or portion-controlled.
Food Styling
Do you ever wonder why food that you see in commercials and other places on television looks so incredible, but when you try and make the same thing at home, the aesthetics just aren’t quite up to par (even though it may taste amazing)?
That’s because food stylists are working behind the scenes with your favorite TV chefs to make the food look as photo and video worthy as humanly possible. Sometimes, however, this means leaving your chicken a bit undercooked – which Al Roker wasn’t aware of when he bit into one of her creations on the ” Today Show.”
Cooking for Royals
Giada has traveled worldwide, serving up her amazing dishes to people, including many famous ones, from coast to coast. But perhaps one of her favorite memories of her time as a TV chef is during 2011 when she was invited to cook for Prince William and Kate Middleton, not long after the two tied the knot in their royal wedding.
Jade De Laurentiis
It’s hard to believe that Giada’s daughter is a teenager considering it feels like she was just a baby a few blinks ago. Giada and designer Todd Thompson had Jade in 2008, an experience which Giada says she’s thrilled she’s gone through with, but not one she plans to do again.
These days, Jade spends time with mom and dad separately, for the most part, since their past divorce. The two still work pretty well together when it comes to parenting their beautiful daughter.
The Split
Although Giada and Todd Thompson were together for more than a decade and created Jade during that time, the marriage wouldn’t last longer than 11 years. Ultimately, they decided to break things off, and their divorce was finalized back in 2015.
The two are still civil with one another, as they’d have to be for their daughter’s sake, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t some rough patches when it came to the breakup. Todd wound up getting the rights to half of her cookbook advances and a whole lot more during the split.
By Design
Even without the help of his ex-wife, Todd Thompson continues to do just fine for himself as a designer for several high-profile people and events. He actually designed the chefs’ coats that are used in his ex’s Las Vegas-based restaurant. These days, he continues to operate as both a designer and a manufacturer.
A Rumored Affair
During the breakup, all sorts of nasty rumors about Giada were circulating on the internet. Not only was she said to have had a relationship outside of her marriage, but she had actually had several. Some of the rumors even suggested that she’d been getting together with fellow Food Network star Bobby Flay.
The List Goes On
Giada has denied all of the rumors about her extra-marital affairs, but that doesn’t stop the public – and the media – from speculating. In 2011, the tabloids hit the ground running with stories of a fling between the Food Network star and Matt Lauer.
The List Goes On
Giada has denied all of the rumors about her extra-marital affairs, but that doesn’t stop the public – and the media – from speculating. In 2011, the tabloids hit the ground running with stories of a fling between the Food Network star and Matt Lauer.
Source: heraldweekly.com