Celebrity chef and part-time Floridian Guy Fieri will be making use of Flavortown’s wheelchair accessibility for the near future after a dramatic accident resulted in emergency surgery.
Fieri, 57, told Fox News Digital in a new interview published Wednesday, Nov. 26, that he received a severe tear in his quad muscle when he “slipped down the steps.”
The Food Network star and host of “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” said he was in the middle of filming his new show, “Flavor Town Food Fight,” when the fall occurred.
“We’ve got everybody in town and all the chefs there and 125 people on set and everybody’s ready to go and I’m in surgery,” he explained. “So, we figured out how to pivot through it and to have some creative filming techniques.”
Guy Fieri: Chicken Guy owner, Food Network star in Florida. See photos
What happened to Guy Fieri?
The self-proclaimed “Mayor of Flavortown” told Fox he slipped on some steps and badly twisted his leg.
“One foot went forward and the other foot got caught on the threshold,” he said. “So, you know, it extended me out. I looked like I was probably doing the splits, but when my right leg compressed into itself, the giveaway point.”
He said his doctor claimed “in 20 years he hasn’t seen a tear in the biggest, thickest part of your quad in half,” the Food Network star continued. “Yeah, it sucked.”
Was Guy Fieri in surgery?
Fieri was rushed to surgery after the fall to make sure his muscles didn’t “recede,” he said.
“You normally tear that muscle at your tendon or the tendon tears off the bone, but this was right in the center of the whole quad muscle and it exploded,” Fieri said.
USA TODAY has reached out to Fieri’s representatives for comment.
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Is Guy Fieri in a wheelchair?
Fieri said he’s now “on crutches and in a wheelchair,” adding that the injury put a “damper” on his Thanksgiving plans.
“Now it’s gonna be me quarterbacking from the wheelchair and telling them what to do. And we cook for about 40 people up here. So it’s going to be, it’s got to be an adventure.”
Fieri will have to go eight weeks with no weight on his leg and then into a cast befire rehabilitation begins.
Does Guy Fieri live in Florida?
The cheerful, spiky-haired restaurateur, author and television personality has long-time connections to Florida.
“Even a cloudy day in Florida is an awesome day,” Fieri said at the opening of the Chicken Guy! location in Winter Park. “I will be in Florida way more than you know.”
He sold one of his Florida houses, a waterfront home in Lake Worth Beach, in January for $7 million. But he still has his waterfront mansion on Singer Island.
Fieri also has filmed multiple episodes of some of his cooking and dining shows in Florida, frequently headlines Miami’s annual South Beach Food and Wine Festival, and his son Hunter Fieri graduated in May 2025 with a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Miami.
Fieri’s “Chicken Guy” chicken tender restaurant chain has four locations in Florida cities including Disney Springs in Lake Buena Vista, Wesley Chapel, Ocala and Davie.
Fieri also runs Flavortown Kitchen, a delivery-only restaurant that’s available in Florida, and even on cruises you can find his food. Guy’s Burger Joint and Guy’s Pig & Anchor are available on various Carnival Cruise liners, which sail out of Jacksonville, Miami, Port Canaveral and Tampa.
Who is Guy Fieri?
Guy Ramsey Ferry was born in Columbus, Ohio but he grew up to be the self-proclaimed Mayor of Flavortown in his seemingly endless appearances on the Food Network.
Fieri, who later changed his name to the original family spelling, began selling pretzels from a cart when he was 10 years old until he could spend a year studying in France at 16. After earning a degree in hospitality management from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, he worked in multiple restaurants and opened his own with partner Steve Gruber in 1996. Fieri and Gruber had opened four restaurants, three Italian “Johnny Garlic’s” eateries and “Tex Wasabi’s,” when friends convinced Fieri to try out for the Food Network’s reality show “The Next Food Network Star.”
The chef who said he likes to “live big, laugh hard, and cook wild” in his audition video, according to Biography.com, won in 2006 and did, in fact, become the network’s next star, starring in several shows for the network, including “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives” and “Guy’s Grocery Games” and multiple shows and TV appearances elsewhere.
Fieri has published several best-selling books and he continues to open restaurants. “I have about 90 restaurants right now,” Fieri told Variety in 2022. “Plus the shows, two boys, 500 goats, a bunch of cars, a bunch of projects, a bunch of hobbies.”
Contributing: Ashley Ferrer, USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida
(This story was updated with new information.)
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Guy Fieri in wheelchair after fall, major surgery
