Rachael Ray Shares a ‘Really Insulting’ Question She’s Asked ‘All the Time’
Rachael Ray is a popular celebrity chef who has been a mainstay in pop culture for over 20 years. From cookbooks to TV shows, there’s not much that Ray hasn’t done.
But through it all, she has remained down-to-earth and approachable, lending her time and talents to a wide variety of charitable organizations. Ray is also notable for the fact that she’s never had children — a subject that, according to Ray, is directly responsible for a rude question that she receives from critics “all the time.”
Rachael Ray has been married to her husband for over 15 years
Ray first entered the food and entertaining space when she was a young woman, working as a pub manager in New York. There, Ray taught people how to prepare easy meals at home, which helped fuel her passion for creating simple meals in under 30 minutes.
In 2001, Ray’s TV series, 30 Minute Meals, premiered on the Food Network. The series ran until 2012 and came back for a revival in 2019. In addition to her iconic first series, Ray has curated many cookbooks and appeared in dozens of other TV projects.
Throughout all of her successes, Ray has had one man by her side — her husband, John Cusimano. Ray and Cusimano first met in the early 2000s, when Ray was just becoming a television star, and they tied the knot in 2005.
Ever since, Ray and Cusimano have been together. Ray once chatted about the secret to their longevity, admitting: “I think if more people would take themselves less seriously, they would be a lot happier in their day-to-day lives. We both work hard and find it easy to laugh at ourselves. It works for us.”
Rachael Ray works with numerous charities to help with food insecurity
Ray and her husband have never had children of their own, with Ray once admitting: “I work too much to be an appropriate parent. I feel like a bad mom to my dog some days because I’m just not here enough.”
Still, Ray and Cusimano have had plenty of love in their life, primarily stemming from their pets. For years, the couple owned a pet pit bull named Isaboo, and after she passed in early 2020, they adopted another dog, a pit bull named Bella Boo Blue.
In spite of the fact that Ray has never had human children, the chef has devoted her time to many causes and organizations involving children.
Reportedly, Ray and Cusimano donated more than $4 million, including proceeds from her product lines to various organizations during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, including Feeding America, Share Our Strength, World Central Kitchen, and Hunger Free America. Many of these organizations work directly with children, helping to address the food insecurity crisis in America.
In a recent appearance on Justin Long’s podcast, Ray opened up about her work with children and food insecurity and revealed the insulting question that she often gets asked.
What ‘really insulting’ question does Rachael Ray get asked a lot?
In her interview with Justin Long, Ray talked about the importance of working with public schools to allow for more nutritious food options.
“Ask your school in your community what you can do. They will take a garden … They will take your advice,” Ray stated, revealing that she believes that many of the changes made to school nutritional programs during the Obama administration (a presidency that Ray strongly supported) will likely be brought back into play. “Those standards will be reintroduced to our schools. We had come a long way.”
Ray also revealed that some of her critics ask her a particular insulting question: “The thing is, people say to me all the time — and I find it really insulting actually — people say to me all the time, ‘Why do you care about school food? You don’t have kids.’ Yeah, but I’m an American.”
Fortunately, Ray doesn’t let the negative comments distract her from her mission.
