Rachael Ray Opens Up About Her Explosive Marriage & Admits Being ‘Hot Tempered’

Rachael Ray has been opening up about her home life on her new podcast, I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead, where she confessed to getting into “huge screaming matches” with her long-term husband, John Cusimano.

Speaking to her guest Jenny Mollen, the celebrity chef explained, “It’s very hard, especially for hot-tempered or creative or vociferous loud people to be able to just calm it down. John and I don’t calm it down ever. We have huge screaming matches all the time, but I think that’s healthy. I really do. And I don’t trust people that are too quiet.”

“Too quiet freaks me out,” she continued. “I prefer that you tell me what you think when you think it, and let’s just get it all out there.”

Despite their frequent blow-ups, Ray noted that they soon get over it and apologize in their own way. “Eventually I pat him on his ass or he kisses me on the head, and that’s just sort of it. That’s the apology,” she said. “It’s just sort of understood. ‘I still like your ass.’ ‘I still like your head.’ It’s kind of in that zone.”

Ray and Cusimano, who is a lawyer and musician with rock band The Cringe, married on September 24, 2005, in Montalcino, Tuscany, Italy, and will celebrate their 20th anniversary next year. During the podcast, Ray admitted that she thought Cusimano was gay when they first met.

“He told me what he had made for dinner the night before, and it was so impressive, and he told me he was a lawyer. There’s no way a straight guy knows what tilapia is,” she quipped before revealing how she tried to set him up on a blind date.

“I said, ‘He’s a great guy’ and I started to describe him, and [Cusimano] said ‘I’m not gay,’” Ray shared. “And I’m like ‘Check, please!’”

Ray’s podcast comes a month after fans grew concerned for her well-being after she shared a video from her FYI series Rachael Ray in Tuscany where she appeared to be slurring her speech.

The Food Network favorite didn’t touch on the video in her podcast, but she did speak about her physical health. She opened up about her love of “physical labor”; however, she admitted to having suffered a few falls in recent weeks.

“I like to help carry in the wood,” she stated. “I had a couple of bad falls in the last couple of weeks so I haven’t been doing that in a while. I love carrying wood. How many pieces of wood did John carry? Can I carry more? I don’t say that to John. I just say that to myself.”

Ray describes her podcast as “unscripted, raw, and real talk,” noting, “Working fuels me, connecting with people fuels me, and this platform allows for connection and conversation on a more personal level, which really fuels me.”