What Ted Allen Revealed About Anne Burrell's Sexuality

You may recognize Ted Allen as the host of the popular cooking show "Chopped," or even from the Bravo series "Queer Eyefor the Straight Guy," in which he served as the food and wine specialist. He's also the best-selling author of multiple cookbooks, including "The Food You Want to Eat: 100 Smart, Simple Recipe" and co-author of the self-help book "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy: The Fab Five's Guide to Looking Better, Cooking Better, Dressing Better, Behaving Better, and Living Better." 

Allen is also very much out and proud and has been married to his husband, Barry Rice, since 2013, per HuffPost. At the time, he took to Twitter to announce the news of their engagement, penning, "Proud to announce on this historic day that my partner of 20 years, Barry Rice, and I are engaged to be married. :)" Their engagement purposefully coincided with the day the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional. Allen told HuffPost that he and Rice had been waiting "for the real thing when [marriage] was genuinely recognized by the federal government of the greatest country on earth." Allen's Twitter announcement was met with plenty of support from fans, who congratulated the television personality and expressed their happiness for the couple.

The Emmy award-winner is clearly not one to stay in the closet, which is why he may have thought nothing of accidentally revealing something about fellow Food Network star Anne Burrell's sexuality during an interview in 2012.

Back in 2012, "Chopped" host Ted Allen was invited to speak on Romaine Patterson's Sirius XM show, where Allen revealed information about fellow Food Network star Anne Burrell's sexuality that landed him in the dog house, per E! News. During the conversation, Allen said, "I'm not going to put a label on Anne, but she is dating a woman right now." This statement came as a shock to listeners who were previously unaware that Burrell had dated women. 

While the "Secrets of a Restaurant Chef" star had kept her love life out of the public eye, her representative told Page Six that she wasn't offended or upset by Allen outing her on the radio show. The rep told the publication that the woman Burrell was dating was "very private," but Burrell herself hadn't deliberately kept their relationship a "secret." She continued, "They have been together for a couple of years and spend a lot of time together." 

Since Burrell came out through a representative, she did not personally speak on the subject of her sexuality, but she was assumed to be lesbian for many years following the incident with Allen. According to Sportskeeda, the Food Network favorite even got engaged to "Top Chef" star Koren Grieveson, but they split before tying the knot. Burrell's fans were shocked once again when she revealed she was engaged again in 2020, but this time, to a man.

When Anne Burrell and Koren Grieveson called off their engagement in 2018, fans of the television personality assumed she would meet and date another woman given her representative's comments that confirmed her sexuality back in 2012. But it turns out Burrell's sexuality is not static, and in 2018, she began dating Stuart Claxton, whom she met on dating app Bumble, according to People. The happy couple got engaged in 2020 and married a year and a half later, in October 2021. The newlywed spoke with the publication ahead of the wedding, stating, "I can't believe it's really here. It's kind of surreal." The couple was lucky to "feel so much love and support from everyone who's coming."

In a separate interview with People, Burrell opened up about meeting Claxton, who works in ad sales marketing at Univision, revealing they "both knew immediately" that they were meant to be together and that their budding relationship was "going to be real and ... turn into something." She wasn't at a point in her life where she was still expecting to get married, but meeting Claxton "changed" everything for her. While Claxton leads a private life of his own, Burrell has had no qualms about sharing their relationship on her Instagram account. Alongside one adorable photo of the couple from their wedding day, Burrell told her followers that it had been "the happiest day of [her] life" and referred to Claxton as her "Prince Charming."