Giada De Laurentiis had a bad experience with Mario Batali.
The Food Network star, 54, recently appeared on Samah Dada’s YouTube show, “On the Menu,” and recalled asking now-disgraced chef Mario Batali to write the foreword for her 2005 cookbook, “Everyday Italian.”
However, Batali’s comments in the book were far from kind.
“This is a person we’re not supposed to talk about, but we’re going to,” De Laurentiis said about Batali, 64, in a TikTok clip from the episode.
De Laurentiis explained that she wanted Batali to write the foreword because, at the time, he was “a legend in the Italian space” and she “felt like his stamp of approval would’ve been huge for me.”
“When I read it, I cried because I realized, ‘Oh, he’s basically saying that I’ve gotten to where I’ve gotten, and I’ve had this little bit of success that I had, because I have big boobs, and that if he had boobs, he would even be much further,’” De Laurentiis shared.
“Because I’m like, a joke, right?” she said. “Like, to him, it was like a little bit of a joke.”
The “Giada at Home” host continued, “And so I called my editor, and I was in tears. I’m like, clearly I can’t use this. So now what do I do?”
Ultimately, De Laurentiis’ editor decided they would rewrite the foreword and send it to Batali for approval.
The final version of the foreword was extremely flattering to De Laurentiis.
“It turns out that Giada is smart, Italian-speaking, and family-oriented — the three qualities my grandma hoped I’d find in a girl to marry. (Too late for that.) She’s also a great cook, highly knowledgeable about food, and a huge amount of fun to be around — the three qualities I’d hope to find in a television partner,” Batali’s foreword reads, per Yahoo! Entertainment.
The Post has reached out to Batali’s rep for comment.
Batali has been out of the spotlight since he was accused of sexual harassment and assault by several women at the height of the #MeToo movement in 2017.
The “Iron Chef America” star issued a public apology in the wake of the allegations, writing “My behavior was wrong and there are no excuses. I take full responsibility.”
Batali faced criminal charges of indecent assault and battery in a Boston court for groping one woman but was ultimately found not guilty of criminal charges. Two women filed lawsuits against him that were settled.
In 2019, he sold his stake in his restaurant empire.
