In an interview with ABC's Nightline airing tonight, 'Celebrichef' Rachael Ray defends some PR moves that she has made in the past, including a sexy layout with men's magazine FHM. It was 2003, she was 35, and her career was just beginning to skyrocket. From the interview and quoted by US Magazine:
"And I thought about [FHM] for a while, and I said, 'You know what? This magazine has as young as 17-, 18-year-olds in hottie bikinis, and these are all actresses, models, pin-up girls. I don't belong to any even remote club of theirs...
I thought, 'If I'm gutsy enough to do this, this is a good thing for everybody. This is the everywoman, here she is,'" she adds. "And I did it, and it was the most scared I've ever been, and I wouldn't change a thing. I'd do it again tomorrow."
Ray's Empire now consists of the TV shows "The Rachael Ray Show," "Tasty Travels,” “$40 A Day,” “Inside Dish,” and “30 Minute Meals," (with which she won a Day Time Emmy for). There is the magazine, Every Day With Rachael Ray, that was launched in 2005.
I also counted more than 20 books on Amazon that list her as the author including the 365: No Repeats - A Year of Deliciously Different Dinners - where a family followed the recipes in the book, in order, from cover to cover and wrote about them. Hilarious.
She has a line of products including everything from a 10-Piece Hard-Anodized Cookware Set to a Lazy Spoon and Ladle Set named after her - to Nutrish, her own dog food label. What is next? Public office?
Well good on ya, Rache. I'm a fan. Some people complain about her being overexposed but the fact remains, too much of anything will cause a belly ache.
