Guy Fieri is a chef, American restaurateur, author, and game show host. He's known for his television shows "Guy's Big Bites" and "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives." However, the Internet knows him as a meme. Photos of him have been posted all over the web, making jokes of his cringe-y looks, personality, and behavior. He's become known as the joke of The Food Network. For many years, I couldn't stand to watch his shows or anything he hosted. I found the way he over exaggeratedly ate his food and moaned and sucked his fingers clean grossed me out entirely and I wrote him off as an old man trying to be cool and hip. I mean, who dyes their hair and soul patch blonde?
2018 has been a big year so far, and I've come to realize: Guy Fieri is a great guy. In the recent California wildfire, over 14,000 people had to be evacuated and over 700 homes were lost in the flames. Fieri arrived on scene with the Salvation Army to help feed the evacuees. Fieri gave this statement to a reporter on the scene:
"We just did lunch for 750, and we are getting ready to do dinner for that same group right now, trying to keep the menu interesting. It is unbelievable to see what folks are going through, but also how great this community is...We are in tough times in the world, with all the things going on, and boy, you take a moment like this, and you really see what America's made of, a lot of great people coming together."
Fieri cooked lunch and dinner for the people forced to leave their home and he didn't bring cameras and publicists to show off how much of a good guy he was, he simply came and cooked and helped as a genuine gesture of kindness to people.
"My team and I got involved. My son and his buddies, and a bunch of my buddies, loaded up the caravan from wine country and drove four hours up here."
Fieri arrived in Redding on Monday and hit the ground running with Operation BBQ Relief. He's been cooking meals every day since for the evacuees and making sure the menu stays fresh for them. Each day they do about 5,000 meals or more, depending on the need.
If more proof is needed of Guy Fieri's need to be respected instead of roasted, in February of 2015 Fieri got himself ordained and had a mass wedding where he married 101 same-sex couples in Miami, Florida. Not only did he ordain these couples, he also catered the huge wedding for them! The weddings were only made possible by fellow chef and Florida native Art Smith, who also was married that day to his loving husband. Duff Goldman also helped the event, by making a large wedding cake for all the happy couples.
Even with all this good he's done, he's still not a perfect man. But he doesn't deserve the ridicule and cruelness the Internet instills upon him. My personal view of Guy Fieri has changed and I hope yours has, too. Fieri has proven to me that he's a good man with good intentions, bent on helping the world with no want or need for recognition. Good on you, Fieri. With all this said, I declare that 2018 is the year that we stop roasting Guy FIeri.
