Giada De Laurentiis is an Italian-American chef, entrepreneur, television show host, TV personality as well as an author. She shocked her fans with the announcement of her separation and ensuing divorce from her celebrity husband who is a fashion designer. Notwithstanding this undesirable event and a few others, her career in the food industry has continued to grow by leaps and bounds. Find out more about Giada De Laurentiis here.
Giada De Laurentiis: Bio, Age
The celebrity chef, Giada Pamela De Laurentiis, was on born August 22, 1970, in Rome, Italy as the eldest child of Veronica De Laurentiis in her first marriage to Alex De Benedetti. Her mother was an actress while her father was an actor-producer at that time.
As a child and like most young girls would do – playing in the kitchen or mimicking to be cooking, Gaida did exactly just that as she was often found a lot of times playing in the family kitchen, practicing and doing what she would later make a career out of. As she got older, she spent a good amount of time in her grandfather’s restaurant named DDL Food show as she got more and more exposed to the business of the food industry.
Following the divorce of her parents, Giada De Laurentiis and her younger sibling relocated to Southern California choosing to bear their mother’s surname. It was at this time she enrolled to study at Marymount High School in Los Angeles and subsequently graduated. She then went further to obtain a bachelor’s degree in social anthropology from the University of California in 1996.
At the time she was studying in L.A, Gaida worked in various restaurants as a chef to make ends meet. Before this time though, she had trained at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris as a pastry chef, so this, coupled with her real-life experience helped accelerate her status and recognition as a professional chef.
Notably, she gained fame as a food stylist when she styled a piece of edibles in the Food and Wine magazine of 2012. This led to the Food Network showing interest in her raw but huge talent with foods. Giada De Laurentiis began her Food Network daytime cooking show called Everyday Italian which started on April 5, 2003.
In 2005, she published her first literary work/cookbook Everyday Italian: 125 Simple and Delicious Recipes which was followed by Giada’s Family Dinners published in 2006. She also presented big shows like Behind the Bash and Giada’s Weekend Getaways in 2006 and 2007. She won her first Daytime Emmy Award in 2008 as an outstanding lifestyle host.
Just a few years ago, she opened her first restaurant called “Gaida” in 2014, The Cromwell, located on the strip in Las Vegas, Nevada. There are already plans of opening a second Las Vegas kitchen just as “Pronto by Giada” is already fully operational as a casual dining restaurant. Her plans also include opening a restaurant to be named “GDL Italian by Giada in the Horseshoe Casino in Baltimore, Maryland, just north of Washington, DC.
Family – Husband, Daughter, Divorce
The personal family story of Giada De Laurentiis is a simple but sad one. Her marriage seemed like a fairy tale when it happened but it was not to last any longer.
On the 5th day of May 2003, Gaida married celebrity fashion designer Todd Thompson and had a child with him. The child, a baby girl was named Jade Marie De Laurentiis-Thompson after she was born on March 29, 2008.
She disclosed that the experience of having a child was indeed a very special one but she doesn’t wish to have any more kids than the one she already has. Her other babies; the television show, her husband, and her daughter were just enough to enable her to steer her career well without losing focus on the trends in the industry.
Sadly, on the 29th day of December 2014, the award-winning chef announced on her website the sour news of having been separated from Todd since July of that year. The announcement had it that they both decided to end the marriage and by September 3, 2015, the divorce was finalized.
Gaida has been reported to be romantically involved with TV producer Shane Farley but she has not come out to accent to or debunk the claims. For all we may assume about her, she might be dating him.
Giada De Laurentiis Net Worth
The chef, book author, and media personality were reported by various sources to have a net worth that is well seated on millions of dollars. Her net worth is about $15 million.
Height
One of the reasons for which Giada De Laurentiis first show and first television appearance was criticized was because of her good looks and to another extent, her shyness.
Viewers of the show expressed their opinion that the directors had hired a model to pose as a chef in a cooking show. But Gaida was no model, she is only tall and pleasant to behold.
The chef has a height of 5 feet 2 inches but often looks taller due to her frequent use of high heels.
