Food Network Star Anne Burrell Dies

The TV chef known for helping the ‘Worst Cooks in America’ boost their culinary skills was 55

Associated Press

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Published June 18, 2025

Celebrity chef Anne Burrell, who gained fame on the Food Network's "Worst Cooks in America," died Tuesday. She was 55.

Daniel Zuchnik/Getty Images for NYCWFF

TV chef Anne Burrell, who coached culinary fumblers through hundreds of episodes of Worst Cooks in America, died Tuesday at her New York home. She was 55.

The Food Network, where Burrell began her two-decade television career on Iron Chef America and went on to other shows, confirmed her death. The cause was not immediately clear, and medical examiners were set to conduct an autopsy.

Police were called to her home before 8 a.m. Tuesday and found an unresponsive woman who was soon pronounced dead. The police department did not release the woman’s name, but records show it was Burrell’s address.

Burrell was on TV screens as recently as April, making chicken Milanese cutlets topped with escarole salad in one of her many appearances on NBC’s Today show. She faced off against other top chefs on the Food Network’s House of Knives earlier in the spring.

“Anne was a remarkable person and culinary talent — teaching, competing and always sharing the importance of food in her life and the joy that a delicious meal can bring,” the network said in a statement.

Celebrity chefs who competed against Burrell on Worst Cooks in America also shared tributes and remembrances on social media.

"Anne was a rockstar!" Rachael Ray wrote on Instagram in a multi-photo post that included a picture of Ray as a bridesmaid at Burrell's wedding. "I came to know her well through multiple seasons of Worst Cooks on Food Network, and she became so much more than a colleague."

“I absolutely loved working with Anne on Worst Cooks in America,” chef Carla Hall posted on Instagram. “She was a fierce chef and instructor—rocking her custom skirts, mismatched socks, and that unforgettable big smile.”

“Anne wasn’t just a fiery chef. She was a radiant spirit who lit up every room she entered,” chef Robert Irvine posted on Facebook. “From the very beginning on Worst Cooks in America, our friendly rivalry was fueled by mutual respect: I’d risk bleaching my hair; she’d risk losing hers. An epic wager that epitomized her unbeatable spirit. It was a wager I ultimately lost, but I couldn’t imagine losing to a more fierce competitor.”

Known for her bold and flavorful but not overly fancy dishes, and for her spiky platinum-blonde hairdo, Burrell and various co-hosts on Worst Cooks in America led teams of kitchen-challenged people through a crash course in savory self-improvement.

On the first show in 2010, contestants presented such unlikely personal specialties as cayenne pepper and peanut butter on cod, and penne pasta with sauce, cheese, olives and pineapple. The accomplished chefs had to taste the dishes to evaluate them, and it was torturous, Burrell confessed in an interview with The Tampa Tribune at the time.

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Still, Burrell persisted through 27 seasons, making her last appearance in 2024.

“If people want to learn, I absolutely love to teach them,” she said on ABC’s Good Morning America in 2020. “It’s just them breaking bad habits and getting out of their own way.”

Burrell was born in the central New York town of Cazenovia, where her parents ran a flower store. She earned an English and communications degree from Canisius University and went on to a job as a headhunter but hated it, she said in a 2008 interview with The Post-Standard of Syracuse.

Having always loved cooking, she soon enrolled in the Culinary Institute of America, for which she later taught. She graduated in 1996, spent a year at an Italian culinary school and then worked in upscale New York City restaurants for a time.

“Anytime Anne Burrell gets near hot oil, I want to be around,” Frank Bruni, then-food critic at the New York Times, enthused in a 2007 review.

By the next year, Burrell was hosting her own Food Network show, Secrets of a Restaurant Chef, and her TV work became a focus. Over the years she also wrote two cookbooks, Cook Like a Rock Star and Own Your Kitchen: Recipes to Inspire and Empower, and was involved with food pantries, juvenile diabetes awareness campaigns and other charities.

Burrell’s own tastes, she said, ran simple. She told The Post-Standard her favorite food was bacon and her favorite meal was her mother’s tuna fish sandwich.

“Cooking is fun,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be scary. It’s creating something nurturing.”

Survivors include her husband, Stuart Claxton, whom she married in 2021, and his son, her mother and her two siblings.

“Anne’s light radiated far beyond those she knew, touching millions across the world,” the family said in a statement released by the Food Network.

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