With his ‘Gangsta’ quotes, fiery red ‘68 Camaro, and frosted spikes, Guy Fieri is an irrepressible force.

“We're taking you on a road rocking trip down to Flavortown, where the gravitational force of bacon warps the laws of space and time,” the star of The Food Network's Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives promises fans.

And boom, just like that we’re along for the ride as Fieri samples cheeseburger fried rice and Seafood Totem Poles.

Fieri’s Michelin-starred brethren may dismiss him as a showman - but lest they forget Fieri is a showman with three television programs; a Sonoma County, California vineyard; 40 restaurants; six bestselling cookbooks, and; an incredible 22 sauces at last count. People even dress as Guy Fieri for Halloween.

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He’s been king of the Food Network since 2006 but Fieri is making headlines for another reason lately. After setting up his Sonoma vineyard, Fieri spent three straight summers bringing thousands of meals to firefighters during the California wildfires. He then raised $25m to help restaurant workers through the Covid-19 Relief Fund, and in his spare time he runs a pretzel cart project to help kids fundraise. To borrow from the Guy Fieri Glossary, he is: Righteous. 

A true superhero is born‍

The road to Flavorville wasn’t always smooth. Born in 1968, Fieri and his younger sister Morgan were raised in Ferndale, California - north of San Francisco - by hippie parents, the kind that dined out on bulgur wheat and granola.

“I had enough bulger and steamed fish to kill a kid,” Fieri said in his audition tape for the Food Network.

After complaining about his parent’s diet, Guy’s father challenged him to do better.

“I went to the butcher, picked out some beautiful steaks, came home and grilled them up. I’ve never been more nervous about something as I was presenting that steak to my dad,” Fieri said. “But after he took a bite, he turned to me and said ‘That might be the best steak I’ve ever had.’ I knew right then what I was meant to do.”
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Intent on becoming a chef, Guy built his first food stall at 10 - a soft pretzel cart that he used to raise money to study cooking in France. He credits much of his business success to his father, a mentor who always challenged him to try new things.

Fieri almost lost his life at age 10 as well. He was bucked off a horse and stomped. The accident tore a ligament off of his liver and bruised his heart. His parents were in Europe so a lawyer had to sign a court order for the 10-year-old’s operation, Fieri told GQ: “I was f***ed up… My mom was devastated.”

He recovered, though, and by the time he was 15 Fieri was off to study for a year in Chantilly, France. After getting his degree in hospitality from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Fieri was ready to open Johnny Garlic’s restaurant with business partner Steve Gruber in 1996. They expanded it into a chain and opened Tex Wasabi sister restaurants next.
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A decade later, Guy was married and starting a family as well as being a successful entrepreneur. He entered a competition to win ‘The Next Food Network Star’ and won in 2006. For his efforts, Fieri was awarded a six-episode cooking show on The Food Channel. Guy's Big Bite series instead lasted a decade. A star was born. 

A death in the family

Bubbling along in the background was Guy’s relationship with his sister, Morgan, who was four years younger. She’d been diagnosed with cancer at age 14 and initially beat the disease but it returned. Morgan refused chemotherapy preferring holistic treatments and died at age 38 in 2011. Her lifelong battle had a profound impact on Fieri.

To commemorate her, Guy has a tattoo of Morgan standing in a clamshell on his arm, modeled after Botticelli’s Birth of Venus.

“Losing my sister to cancer was… That was the worst thing in the world, man. I can’t even f***ing… Nothing you can do about it except hold on, love your family, love your sister,” Fieri said in an emotional interview. “Yeah. Angry. I was every emotion. I mean, it can’t be the end. There’s gotta be another union at some point in time. I’m not a religious person by any means. [But] I believe that there’s a lot more going on. Not voodoo-type sh**, but something’s gotta be going on, man.”

To honor Morgan, a lesbian, Fieri officiated at a mass wedding of same-sex couples in Miami in 2015 after Florida legalized gay marriage. Since then, Fieri has also agreed to marry Twilight star Kristen Stewart and her partner Dylan Meyer.

During a press tour, the newly engaged Stewart mentioned: "The idea of that man - that sweet, sweet, spiky-headed man - coming to our wedding and officiating, it just makes me laugh so much.” To her surprise, Guy Fieri agreed, saying he was ‘all in’.

Life on the road‍

When he’s not making ‘bomb-ass’ Pinot Noir wine in Sonoma, Fiery is bombing down the highway wearing sunglasses on the back of his head and staking out his next Diners, Drive-ins and Dive restaurants.

Guy started filming again in Wyoming in late 2021. He had been hosting a ‘Take Out’ edition of DDD - putting together pre-packed ingredients and assembling them along with video chat with the restaurant owners to keep promoting small businesses throughout the pandemic lockdowns.

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Guy’s pretzel cart project is still going strong as well. His idea is to inspire kids by building pretzel carts that cost him around $10,000 each so the children can raise money for non-profit organizations.

“It’s inspiring kids to dream. It’s inspiring kids to hope and wish,” Fieri said. “And inspiring kids to recognize they are empowered to do anything they want. I want to see kids not settle for just ‘whatever’. I want them to seek out their goals.”