Over a year after ending ‘The Rachael Ray Show,’ the celebrity cook has a new podcast and a partnership with A&E Networks
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Rachael Ray has remained busy as ever nearly a year and a half after the end of her long-running show.
The TV host and cook, 56, appeared in good spirits at the Food Network New York City Wine & Food Festival during her annual Burger Bash event on Oct. 18. She worked the stage as she hosted with her husband, John Cusimano, and announced the competition’s winners.
Ray also took on hosting duties at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival’s Burger Bash in February. And in June, she and Cusimano came out for the North Shore Animal League America’s 2024 Celebration of Rescue in N.Y.C., where they posed for photos with Howard and Beth Stern.
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However, a revelation Ray made on her new podcast, I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead, has prompted recent concerns about her health.
“I really like chores,” Ray said on its first episode, released Oct. 22. “I like what people consider physical work. I like making dinner, planning dinners, making lists. I love physical labor, helping carry in the wood.”
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“I’ve had a couple of bad falls in the last couple of weeks, so I haven’t been doing that in a while,” she continued.
In September, some fans commented on Ray’s state in a video posted to her Instagram account. She recalled hosting Tony Bennett for dinner. Ray said she made the late crooner’s favorite dish, ossobuco, but “almost killed him” when his chair slid out from under him on her polished floors.
Ray bid farewell to her syndicated daytime talk show, The Rachael Ray Show, in May 2023.
That same month, Ray shared on Instagram that she was “spending more time in Italy,” and this past summer she was still sharing snaps from various Italian destinations, such as a sunset in the Tuscan island of Elba and a birthday celebration for Cusimano in Puglia.
The couple are based in New York, with an apartment in N.Y.C. and a home upstate in Lake Luzerne that they had rebuilt after it was destroyed in a massive fire in August 2020.
Ray has also been celebrating her love for Italian cuisine with Rachael Ray in Tuscany, a new series that premiered in June.
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In 2024, her production company, Free Food Studios, partnered with A&E Networks to bring “in the kitchen” content and new shows from Ray and other talent over the following two years.
Ray told PEOPLE in January that she’s “not really good with downtime” — a sentiment she’s echoed on I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead.
“I love to work. I love it. I love to have my brain very active, and if I’m not writing shows, I’m drawing ‘foodles’ I call them — recipes on paper — and writing books and things,” she said. “I don’t like being idle. I’ve never been good at it.”