Courtesy of longtime reader Chris L. comes a link to a story in the St. Petersburg Times about Food Network star Robert Irvine, who appears to have fabricated parts of his resume and whose plans for a pair of big-time St. Petersburg restaurants are rapidly falling apart. Good work by the team that worked on this piece, although I would have liked to have seen some comments from the Food Network people (or at least the obligatory “no comment”). I’ve emailed the writer to ask if he reached anyone at FN on this topic.
Update: The article’s main writer, Ben Montgomery, told me that Food Network did not respond to his requests for comment, and that their food/dining blogger has also been trying to get a comment. You can see an update to the story related to the Princess Di wedding cake lie.
5:24 pm EST update: Ben sent me a link to a statement from a FN spokesperson over on the Mouth of Tampa Bay blog regarding Irvine. The gist seems to be that they’re distancing themselves from Irvine already.
Ironically, I met him in December, as I was waiting on line to be let into Emeril’s last ever live show. I didn’t get in – the audience was filled with friends & family of the crew. But, he was a tool, and I got a huge laugh when someone came up to him and asked for directions, having no idea who he was. It made him furious.
Keith, it sounds like you’re already in the loop on this story, but there’s some updates concerning the Food Network reaction here:
http://blogs.tampabay.com/dining/2008/02/irvine-cooked-u.html
and here:
http://blogs.tampabay.com/dining/2008/02/food-network-co.html
(yes, I need to learn the html for linking words…)
Never liked his show or him as a personality but that would include 70-percent of FN. It looks like this is a three-sided coin of embellishment – Irvine, Wendy What’s-her-name and FN. Irvine may have said some stuff that was misinterpreted or pushed past it’s reality. Obviously, I don’t know what he said but his White House thing may have been blown up by FN to make him look like a bigger personality than he actually is.
That said, he’s always sounded like an ass on the show and his food rarely impresses… many times it looks like Cheesecake Factory grub.
Jamie At Home is the best thing on the FN now. Great show.
Ooh… I kind of like his show, even thught it seems to lost its tension these days as he never fails.
Anyway, FN is not on shaky ground. I wonder Mr.Law got to watch ultimate recipe showdown. I just watch half of yesterday’s one to check how horrible it was. It was really horrble.
Oops…it seems that I cannot modify my comment. FN IS on shaky ground. Half of their daily programs are rerun and new programs are not very impressive. And people like me, who had been able to learn fundamentals from the programs loses interest as they have changed the character of them to more like fight or competition.
Just as an additional interesting point…
His show link doesn’t go anywhere and his bio has been taken down on the FN website.
Next we’re going to find out Rachel Ray is really the joker or that Giada’s head fell off because it’s too heavy for her small frame. My goodness!