We got 5 of the most famous cooking-show judges to share true stories of their shit childhoods. Like, damn - that’s some shit. We’re actually surprised y’all managed to be like, seemingly functional adults and d-list celebrities. Hearing about their totally shit upbringings will ABSOLUTELY make you feel better about your only slightly shit childhood.
1. Carlos Ortega Guzman
The jester prince of TLC’s Cook or Get the Fuck Out is sure to bring his Latin style to every cooking competition. Who could forget his signature catch phrase: “Ey cabrón! This food tastes like my teenage son acts: disagreeable!” Given his natural on-screen charisma, it may come as no surprise that Guzman was a child celebrity in his native Argentina. However early stardom was less than ideal for little Carlos. Here’s what he had to say about his shit childhood:
“In my home of Argentina I got my start on a daytime reality show called Dolphin House, where I was made to live with the dolphins in a half flooded warehouse. My dolphin “parents,” they treat me terribly. They slap me with their tails. They scream at me in clicking noises that I do not understand. They do not let me see my real family or friends. All I ate was fish and my hands and feet became very wrinkly from spending so much time in the water. I HATE those dolphins. Every night in my dreams, I dreamed of revenge. This is why many of my favorite dishes center around Mahi Mahi. ”
2. Dame Kitty St. Claude
This old Bri’ish battleax stomachs “no mucking around” in her kitchen! As the stern judge on Discovery Plus’s Get Forked, she can be seen humiliating and demoralizing the child contestants so that they understand the realities of being a professional chef. In her most famous outburst, she became so cross about a contestant’s Beef Wellington that she locked him in the cupboard for the remainder of the season. Surely, this mannerly mistress had a proper upbringing...Think again! Her childhood was shit. Check it out:
“I grew up in the gutters of Sussex. The firs' dishy I learned to cook was turtle soup. That's because there was quite an overpopulation of turtles living in those shi' infested sewers - and these weren' the nice turtles ye’ see sunning on logs in the park. No, no, no, these were quite bastard turtles tha' would latch on to yer ankle and drag ye’ down into the sewage. It was ea' or be eaten in tha’ fockin’ cesspool, so I hunted those mater fockers down and fed ‘em to me gang of stree' urchins.”
3. Todd Cincinnati
This flannel-wearing guy’s guy has scarfed down his fair share of chicken wings on SpikeTV’s Bar Food Feud: Grilled Meats & Clapped Cheeks. On-screen Todd comes off as the down-to-earth bro that would drink a beer in the shower, but did you know that his childhood was shit? It’s true! Poor son of a bitch!
“No, my childhood wasn’t shit. I grew up in this mansion out in Tucson and my parents got me a Range Rover for my 14th birthday. We actually lived next door to Usher - he was sort of like an uncle to me. I was actually there the night Uncle Ludacris and Uncle Lil Jon (they’re all like uncles to me) came over and they wrote “Yeah! ft. Ludacris and Lil Jon.” It was fucking tight. I mean, yeah, my dad and mom weren’t really around so much with work and everything. They travelled a lot and normally stayed in our vacation home in Martha’s Vineyard, while I was alone in Tucson. Yeah, I guess it was sort of lonely in there all by myself. I guess I am sort of haunted by my unanswered cries echoing down the hallways of that big empty mansion. Like, my dad never even taught me how to ride a bike. Sure, he hired BMX legend Mat Hoffman to come give me lessons...but it’s just not the same. The only time I really saw my parents was once a year around the holidays when they would schedule me in for a video conference to assess my “physical development.”
4. Van Saturday
The tattooed star of Netflix’s BUTCHer Shop, this short-haired, stocky meat queen pulls no punches in the kitchen. An out and proud lesbian since she tasted her first box in tenth grade, you just know it was a shit upbringing that led to this overweight bull-dyke’s no non-sense demeanor.
“I knew I was different pretty early on when all the other girls were marinating their jean shorts over Justin Timberlake and I was crossing state lines in a Greyhound bus to meet a 42-year-old chain-smoking Waffle House waitress who I met in an AOL chat room. Once Mom saw that her daughter had more interest in softballs than guys’ balls, she took to pill-popping and three-Martini breakfasts. I guess Dad tried his best to understand, but when he caught me munching my best friend Martha’s carpet on his dead mother’s prized comforter, he kicked me out and I ain’t been back since.”
5. Dom Eleganza
He may be Dom Eleganza, world-renowned Italian chef and star of Food Network’s Ay! Oh! I’m Cookin’ Here!, but before that he was little Dominic DiPiazza and he overcame an Italian wedding-sized amount of shit to get where he is today.
“When I was 8, I was abducted by aliens and taken to a planet called Xanzippak-P13 where I was experimented on and forced to write out as many Earth words as I knew, in order for the Gortherimen tribe to learn as much about our world as possible. After what seemed like years of captivity, but turned out to be only 15 minutes or so in Earth time, I was returned to my childhood home where I found my parents had been brutally murdered by the Gortherimens. The doctors at the orphanage claimed that the trauma from finding my parents’ bodies was what led me to create this fantasy in my head, but I know what I experienced! I’M NOT CRAZY! ALIENS KILLED MY PARENTS AND MADE ME TEACH THEM HOW TO MAKE THE PERFECT BOLOGNESE!”