Rachael Ray was in good spirits last week as she hosted her Burger Bash event at the Food Network New York City Wine & Food Festival, just days after she said she had “a couple bad falls.”
Ray, 56, appeared onstage with husband John Cusimano, thanking the crowd for coming out and announcing the winner of the annual competition.
Four days after the October 18 event, Ray released the first episode of her “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead” podcast. In the October 22 episode, which was likely pre-recorded, she described how her recent falls prevented her from doing household chores.
“I am a homemaker. I really like chores,” she told her guest, Jenny Mollen. “I like what people consider physical work. I like making dinner, planning dinners, making lists. I love physical labor, helping carry in the wood.”
“I’ve had a couple of bad falls in the last couple of weeks, so I haven’t been doing that in a while,” she continued.
Her admission comes a month after she posted a video via her Instagram channel in which she seemed to be slurring her words. The side of her mouth also appeared to have dropped, leading commenters to theorize she had suffered a mini-stroke.
“Please stop. We get old, our face changes, some women don’t get facework done,” wrote one commenter, jumping to her defense. “I have TMJ that makes my mouth slightly off. Saying she has had a stroke is disrespectful. Unless, she truly has and tells everyone, I feel it’s wrong to playing a guessing game.”
Ray also admitted on her podcast that she sometimes gets into “screaming matches” with her husband.
“It’s very hard, especially for hot-tempered or creative or vociferous loud people to be able to just calm it down,” she said. “John and I don’t calm it down ever. We have huge screaming matches all the time, but I think that’s healthy. I really do. And I don’t trust people that are too quiet.”
“Too quiet freaks me out,” she added. “I prefer that you tell me what you think when you think it and let’s just get it all out there.”
Ray first announced her podcast earlier this month, saying in a statement, “‘I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead’ (quite literally!) is about life’s journeys and what keeps us going. It’s unscripted, raw, and real talk. Working fuels me, connecting with people fuels me, and this platform allows for connection and conversation on a more personal level, which really fuels me.”
