Chef Giada De Laurentiis Reveals She Cried After Mario Batali Wrote Insulting Foreword For Her Debut Cookbook

In the early 2000s, Giada De Laurentiis was carving out her Food Network stardom with a bright smile, enviable pasta skills, and a cookbook deal that should have been a dream come true.

But behind the glossy pages of Everyday Italian lurked a sexist message that was courtesy of now-disgraced chef Mario Batali.

On a recent episode of On the Menu with Samah Dada, De Laurentiis recalled how her publisher landed Batali—the orange Croc-wearing culinary heavyweight then considered a legend of Italian cuisine—to pen the foreword for her 2005 debut book.

At the time, she was thrilled, “It felt like his stamp of approval would've been huge for me.”

Instead, Batali delivered what can only be described as a locker-room joke in written form.

According to De Laurentiis, the foreword implied she owed her career not to skill, her Italian heritage, or culinary hustle, but to her body:

“I cried because I realized...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…"

Contacting her editor “in tears,” De Laurentiis wondered if that’s what Batalli really thought of her:

“Because I'm like, a joke, right? Like, to him, it was like a little bit of a joke… That’s basically what a lot of people figured: cute girl with big boobs, so that’s why they’re watching her.”

Her team offered to ghostwrite a new version for Batali to rubber-stamp quietly.

The revised foreword ended up reading much more polished:

“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.”

You can watch the full clip below:

De Laurentiis says she’s never forgotten the moment—and for good reason.

Hindsight has a way of reframing things. Batali’s reputation crashed during the #MeToo movement, when multiple women accused him of sexual misconduct. In 2017, he stepped away from his restaurant empire and exited ABC’s The Chew.

He later admitted the accusations “match up” with his behavior, offered an apology, and in 2021 agreed to a $600,000 settlement after a four-year sexual harassment investigation by the New York attorney general. Meanwhile, his Boston restaurants closed, and he had to sell his stake in Eataly.

De Laurentiis, for her part, wasn’t exactly shocked by the downfall.

On a 2018 episode of Eater Upsell, she said:

“Anybody who’s ever hung out with Mario knows he’s a very charismatic person. We drink too much and sometimes … I’m not legitimizing it by any means. I know I’ve been through my own issues in this business. I think any woman in any business goes through stuff. It’s just sad.”

When De Laurentiis’ story resurfaced online, the internet quickly came to her defense—with fans applauding her honesty and dragging Batali for his ‘boobs over talent’ take:

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While Batali retreated from public life, De Laurentiis has only expanded hers. She’s written multiple cookbooks, launched a Target product line, opened restaurants like GDL Italian in Baltimore, and most recently starred in Giada in My Kitchen on Prime Video, where she redesigns dream kitchens for home cooks.

Unlike Batali, she doesn’t need a foreword to validate her career—her decades-long empire speaks for itself.

You can watch her full On the Menu episode here:

- YouTubedadaeats/YouTube