Giada De Laurentiis reveals why she really left Food Network: ‘I was very fearful’ (2024)

She was cooked.

Giada De Laurentiis, 53, is revealing why she walked away from Food Network after 21 years as its star, citing burnout as a reason.

“I would switch gears without knowing it every seven years,” the TV host and chef said on the recent episode of Rebecca Minkoff’s “Superwomen” podcast.

“So I did ‘Everyday Italian’for seven years, then I got pregnant, and I was like, ‘OK, I can’t do that show anymore. I’ve got to do a reincarnation of the show because I’m now pregnant. I’m a different person,’” she said of having her now-16-year-old daughter, Jade, in 2008.

“I was lucky enough to be at a period of time at Food Network where that was OK, and they were open to those kinds of suggestions because the landscape hadn’t really been fully discovered yet, and so I think they were just more open to the talent,” she said.

De Laurentiis first joined the network in 2002 with “Everyday Italian,” which earned her a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Lifestyle Host. She also had the shows “Giada’s Weekend Getaways,” “Giada at Home,” “Giada Entertains,” “Giada’s Holiday Handbook” and “Giada in Italy,” and she was ajudge and mentor on “Food Network Star.”

Walking away after over two decades wasn’t easy, the A-list chef added.

“It took a while for me to make this decision because I was very fearful of leaving Food Network,” she said. “Because when you’re a big fish in that pond and then you get out, who knows what’s gonna happen next? But I really started to become interested in the entrepreneurial sort of journey. And I realized I couldn’t do both.”

Juggling her 2015 divorce from Todd Thompson, raising their daughter and her own busy work schedule got her feeling “like the world was crumbling around me,” De Laurentiis said.

“So about 2½ years ago, I finally was like, ‘OK, I’m gonna make the jump, and I’m gonna put my energy in [lifestyle brand] Giadzy,'” she said. “I’ll still do TV. I have a deal with Amazon, so I still do a little bit of that, but it’s definitely not the schedule I used to keep. Definitely not.”

When asked if she missed it at all, De Laurentiis said, “No. I know, I should say yes. I think it’s because I got burnt out. I really worked so hard for so long. I got burnt out and I couldn’t see a path that was exciting anymore. I need excitement. And if I’m getting bored, my viewers are getting bored.”