10 Celebrity Chefs Who Have Been Behind Bars

There's something very earnest and inspiring about the notion of the "celebrity chef." Largely anonymous to all but the elite and hardcore gourmets and gourmands for centuries as they toiled away in the kitchen, the most talented chefs that came to prominence in the latter half of the 20th century and beyond became world famous because they were exceptionally skilled and unbelievably talented at the universally appreciated art and science of making food. Celebrity chefs don't just flip steaks or make casseroles, however — they truly love food and take dishes to new, previously unrealized heights.

The often-mentioned quip "chefs are the new rock stars" is an accurate assessment, as these rulers of professional kitchens, restaurant portfolios, cookbook construction, and food TV shows dazzle, delight, and entertain. But then the dark side of that statement is also true. Sometimes, rock stars get in trouble for their almost sanctioned bad behavior. So too do celebrity chefs sometimes break the law, and in a manner so severely that it demands an official reprimand. Here are some of the most famous chefs and food TV stars who have known the inside of a jail cell or a prison.

Buddy Valastro is far better known by his nickname, "Cake Boss," which also served as the title of his long-running reality TV show. At the forefront of the TV baking and fancy cake craze of the 2010s and shaped by painful events, Valastro makes towering treats at Carlo's Bake Shop, which grew to a national chain and includes vending machines at malls and airports. Rarely does an opportunity go by in a public or televised appearance where Valastro fails to remind the public that he's "the Cake Boss."

Late one night in November 2014, the New Jersey-based Valastro was driving his Corvette in nearby Manhattan when police pulled him over after seeing him weaving down the road. Issued a Breathalyzer test to determine if Valastro was over the legal limit, he registered a .09, in excess of the .08 level of drunkenness. Placed under arrest and restrained with handcuffs, an angry Valstro reportedly told police (via the New York Daily News), "You can't arrest me. I'm the Cake Boss." Nevertheless, Valastro spent the night in a New York City jail cell, and he was arraigned the following day on driving under impaired ability and driving while intoxicated charges. The Cake Boss served no more time behind bars after entering a guilty plea and agreeing to a sentence of having his driver's license suspended for a period of three months.

Since the early 2000s, Italian-born chef Gino D'Acampo has saturated British television. Reportedly a celebrity chef who's a jerk behind the scenes, D'Acampo has headlined his own cooking shows and food travelogues, and popping up on magazines, news, and reality shows to cook, he's best known for "Gino's Italian Escape," "Gordon, Gino & Fred: American Road Trip" with Fred Sirieix and Gordon Ramsey, and his 19 cookbooks, with most of them focused on authentic Italian dishes.

In 2009, D'Acampo, while competing on the reality show "I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!," disclosed that in 1998, before he was famous, he'd broken into and stolen items from the London home of Paul Young, the soft rock star best known for his 1985 No. 1 hit "Everytime You Go Away." At the time, D'Acampo was working as a waiter, and from Young he thieved a ceremonial platinum record and guitars worth £4,000. After D'Acampo's DNA was found on cigarette butts he'd left in Young's bedroom, he was arrested and received a two-year prison sentence, which he served.

Back in the mid-2000s, when Food Network's schedule was packed with instructional shows covering numerous cooking niches, it scored a hit with "Calorie Commando." Over the course of around 39 episodes, viewers learned tricks and ingredient substitutions to make lower-fat and calorie-reduced versions of decadent homestyle favorites. The host was an expert on that kind of thing – Juan-Carlos Cruz had lost 100 pounds in part due to healthy eating hacks, and he brought many of those to "Calorie Commando" and a tie-in cookbook.

In May 2010, Cruz was arrested by authorities in Santa Monica, California, after two unhoused men, David Carrington and David Walters, came forward and told police that the TV food personality had asked them to kill his wife, Jennifer Campbell. While they didn't accept the $500 that Cruz was offering, at least one of the men assisted with a police operation to get Cruz on videotape ordering the hit once more and then driving him to his residence to show how to gain access to the secure building. Cruz entered a plea of no contest on a charge of solicitation to murder, leading prosecutors to drop a more severely penalized charge of attempted murder. He was sentenced to nine years in prison, and Cruz became a chef who left Food Network behind.

In the 1980s and 1990s, classically French trained chef Marco Pierre White was a big reason why London became a respected destination restaurant hotbed. By 1995, when he was 33, White had three Michelin stars for one of his two London restaurants — the first Briton and youngest chef ever to reach that milestone. A mentor and inspiration for other British chefs, he made his way onto TV, with prominent positions on "Hell's Kitchen" and "The Great British Feast."

In 2005, a verbal altercation between White and his wife, Mati, grew so heated that the latter called 999 to summon police to their home in London. Police arrested White and held him on a charge of suspicion of assault, which falls under the heading of domestic violence. The chef spent 14 hours in jail before his release. White declared his innocence in the matter, claiming to have never struck his spouse, who also denied that her husband had struck her, saying that she called police because she thought a visit would result in the chef being urged to leave their home for an evening and cool off. Two years later, the couple separated with an eye toward divorce and have engaged in a series of courtroom battles since.

Twin Cities chef Justin Sutherland is behind the chain Northern Soul and the currently closed Big E and Pearl & the Thief. He's also shown up on many of the major televised food outlets. He's an "Iron Chef" champion, has vied with other chefs on "Top Chef," and co-hosted and competed on the fast food re-creation game show "Fast Foodies."

On a June 2024 evening, police in Minneapolis followed up on a call about an individual spotted waving a gun near a building and allegedly menacing a woman. A separate call on the incident could overhear the interaction, reporting that the pair seemed to be a couple and that the man had grabbed the woman's phone, thrown it on the ground, and threatened violence. That individual was Sutherland, who, despite yelling at police and claiming that he'd called 911 because he was in danger, cooperated with his arrest. Three days later, Sutherland was arraigned on a felony charge of threatening violence. His former partner obtained a no-contact order against the chef, which he allegedly violated when he was seen with the woman at a Target and Spirit Halloween store the following October. After that misdemeanor offense was factored in, a Ramsey County court sentenced Sutherland to 60 days of house arrest, anger and domestic abuse counseling, fines, and two years of probation.

Cat Cora was instrumental in the history and evolution of "Iron Chef" in the United States. The first female champion of "Iron Chef America," the chef also hosted entertaining food TV programs like "Around the World in 80 Plates," "My Kitchen Rules," and "Family Food Fight." While her New York restaurant Fatbird was a massive flop of a celebrity chef restaurant, Cora successfully started more than a dozen well-liked restaurants around the country, and she remains one of the best chefs who can be booked on Cameo.

After driving away from a Santa Barbara, California bar in June 2017, Cora struck another car from behind at a low speed. No injuries were reported, but both drivers exited their vehicles to discuss the matter, and after the hit motorist suspected that Cora was intoxicated, police arrived and issued two Breathalyzer tests. The chef admitted to having drunk three bottles of beer, and the tests registered blood alcohol levels of .20 and .19, well over the California legal threshold for drunkenness of .08. Cora was taken into police custody, where she was ordered to spend the night in a Santa Barbara Police Department-operated Sobering Center until she could be safely released. That's all the time Cora did for the crime of drunk driving; she was also ordered to pay a $2,386 fine and report to a probation officer for three years.

"Chef Du Jour" ran on Food Network for years, and it featured prominent chefs explaining the ins and outs of top-level cooking to the less experienced amateur cooks watching at home. Matthew Tivy was often on the show, sharing his experiences and tricks of the trade learned from his time in major restaurants, including the Upper West Side of Manhattan eatery Café du Soleil, which the chef also owned.

In October 2015, Tivy's on-screen and restaurant careers came to an abrupt end due to his arrest and incarceration for some deeply troubling alleged crimes. According to the FBI, in 2014, Tivy had approached a teenager online and persuaded them to partake in what the agency called "sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing a visual depiction of such conduct," which the chef then distributed on the internet. While his attorney declared Tivy to be innocent of all charges and said he'd entered into therapy, Tivy was detained behind bars until his trial could begin. Prosecutors didn't offer bail. Tivy never got his day in court. Slightly over a year later, the chef died in custody while awaiting trial and in the midst of negotiating a plea bargain. The 55-year-old died from the effects of a brain tumor.

Already remarkably skilled at so many things — cooking, baking, gardening, and home decoration, among others — Martha Stewart opened a catering company in 1976. Within a few years, she'd launch a line of books on food and entertaining, then multiple magazines, and star in a syndicated daily series where she showed people how to cultivate beautiful homes full of wonderful food. In 1999, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia issued its initial public offering, making the newly minted executive and proven expert on food and so many other things a billionaire.

An ill-fated stock transaction ultimately landed Stewart in prison. Stewart unloaded around 4,000 shares of ImClone in 2001, one day before the news emerged that the biotech company's promising cancer medication, Erbitux, hadn't received FDA approval. The stock's value plummeted, and after ImClone executive — and friend of Stewart — Sam Waksal was discovered to have sold off his stock before the FDA rejection, both parties were arrested on charges of insider trading, allegedly using non-public knowledge to influence the sale of their shares. Before her conviction, Stewart denied guilt to authorities, saying that she'd just happened to dump the stock through a preexisting deal with her broker. After no trace of such a sell order transpired, Stewart was indicted on charges that included obstruction of justice and securities fraud. Found guilty for essentially lying to federal authorities, Stewart got a minimum sentence: five months in prison and five months of house arrest.

Chef Jeff Henderson combines high-end food preparation with outreach and social change. He's a motivational speaker as much as he is a chef, and he created the Chef Jeff Project in his home base of Las Vegas in 2020 to involve economically disadvantaged and at-risk youth in cooking and hospitality training programs. Over the ensuing decades, the 2001 American Food and Wine Tasting Federation Chef of the Year worked at kitchens associated with the Ritz-Carlton, Hotel Bel-Air, and Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, on his way to being appointed executive chef at that city's Café Bellagio.

Years before he stepped foot in a professional kitchen, Henderson made his living as a drug dealer. Introduced by his cousin into the trade as a junior high student in Burbank, California in the late 1970s, within a decade Henderson was earning $35,000 a week selling cocaine throughout San Diego. In 1988, police arrested one of Henderson's money handlers carrying cocaine and $40,000 in cash. The connection to Henderson was established, and the future chef was convicted on various drug charges and sentenced to more than 10 years in prison. That's where he learned to cook, eventually ascending to the position of his facility's chef and receiving culinary training in a program for the incarcerated, which prepared him for his career when he was paroled in 1997.

After receiving his food training through the Duke of Edinburgh's Award program in the U.K., Jon Watts set off on his own in 2015, opening the John's Streat Food truck, which brought him so much attention that he became a hired chef for celebrities and became the in-house caterer on the reality show "The X Factor." One of the most visible and rising food stars in the U.K., Watts has published two top-selling cookbooks, "Speedy Comfort" and "Speedy Weeknight Meals."

All that came after prison. After finishing his compulsory education in the U.K. at age 16 in the mid-2000s, Watts fell into a life of small-time crime. "There was a period of time that I was being arrested every single weekend," he told a Royal Family publication. In 2008, 18-year-old Watts was sentenced to six and a half years in a prison for younger inmates. He signed on to do most any activity and skills-building program offered, and one of those pursuits was working in the kitchen. Allowed partial-day work release, he was selected for famed chef Jamie Oliver's program that put current and paroled prisoners to work in his restaurants. Watts toiled in Oliver's kitchens for five years, eventually being let out of prison and promoted to the position of sous-chef.