Guy Fieri is usually the guy roaring around kitchens like a human fireball, not someone you picture being rolled around in a wheelchair. But that’s exactly where he found himself after a brutal accident left him with a quad muscle torn, as he put it, “in half.” And when a man who has eaten his way through every deep fryer in America says something “sucked,” you know it was bad.
According to Fieri, he slipped going down a set of steps, one foot shot forward, the other got hung up on the threshold, and suddenly he was doing a set of involuntary splits that no 56 year old man should ever attempt. His right leg compressed and, as he told Fox News, the doctor said he had never seen a tear like that. Not at the tendon, not where these injuries normally happen, but right in the middle of the main quad muscle, which apparently “exploded.” That alone deserves hazard pay, and he’s the guy who caused it.
The timing was catastrophic. Fieri was in the middle of filming his new show, “Flavor Town Food Fight,” which had chefs, cameras and around 125 people already on set waiting for him to kick things off. Instead, production got the pleasure of watching their host get hauled into emergency surgery. To their credit, the crew adapted, adjusted camera angles and kept the thing going while Fieri was laid up.
Now he’s stuck at home on crutches and in a wheelchair for eight weeks, which means Thanksgiving is getting a total overhaul. The man can cook for an army with one hand, but he can’t walk, and that makes things tricky when you’re feeding forty people at the ranch. His son Ryder, who clearly saw an opening to earn bragging rights, texted him from school saying it was finally “his time to shine.” Fieri sounded thrilled that Ryder volunteered instead of having to be drafted.
Holiday duty is now officially in the hands of Hunter, Ryder and their cousin Jules, all of whom Fieri has been training for years. He’ll be “quarterbacking from the wheelchair,” pointing, directing and probably yelling a little, because the man does not do anything quietly.
It’s not exactly how he planned to spend his fall, but if anyone can turn a blown apart quad into a family cooking spectacle, it’s Guy Fieri. Thanksgiving in Flavortown is still happening; it’s just being run by the next generation while the boss heals up.
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