Giada De Laurentiis Reflects On Food Network Exit: “I Got Burnt Out”

Giada De Laurentiis left the Food Network after 21 years and is not missing her old work schedule.

In a new interview, De Laurentiis reflects on what led her to leave the cable network after so long and focus on her lifestyle brand.

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“I would switch gears without knowing it every seven years. So I did Everyday Italian for seven years. Then I got pregnant, and I was like ‘OK I can’t do that show anymore. I got to do a reincarnation of the show because I’m now pregnant. I’m a different person,’” De Laurentiis said on Rebecca Minkoff’s podcast Superwomen.

De Laurentiis was one of the most recognizable faces on the Food Network and “was lucky enough to be at a period of time” at the network where she was able to make suggestions about her next projects.

“The landscape hadn’t really been fully discovered yet, and so I think they were just more open to the talent,” she added.

After multiple projects at the network, she decided to take a leap of faith in a new direction, a decision she didn’t take lightly.

“I just decided that at a certain point, and it took awhile for me to make this decision because I was very fearful of leaving Food Network,” she said. “Because when you’re a big fish in that pond and then you get out, who knows what’s going to happen next. But I really started to become interested in the entrepreneurial journey and I realized I couldn’t do both.”

De Laurentiis recalled that it was about two and a half years ago that she finally decided “to make the jump” and focus on her lifestyle brand Giadzy, adding, “I’ll still do TV. I have a deal with Amazon, so I still do a little bit of that, but it’s definitely not the schedule I used to keep.”

The TV personality said she doesn’t miss Food Network, noting, “I should say yes, but it’s not. I think it’s because I got burnt out. I really worked so hard for so long, I got burnt out. I need excitement. I get bored, and if I’m getting bored, my viewers are getting bored.”

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