(Photo by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for NYCWFF)
Anne Burrell died Tuesday (June 17) at age 55. The TV chef is best known for coaching culinary fumblers through hundreds of episodes of ‘Worst Cooks in America.’ According to the Associated Press, the Food Network confirmed Anne Burrell’s death. Burrell began her two-decade television career on the network’s ‘Iron Chef America’ and went on to do other shows with the TV giant.
Editor’s Note: This article was first published on June 18 and updated on Thursday, July 24, with new details about Burrell’s cause of death. Scroll to the second subheading for the latest.
Police were called to Anne Burrell’s address before 8 a.m. Tuesday. Officers found an unresponsive woman in the home and soon pronounced her dead. At the time, the police department did not release the woman’s name, but records show it was Burell’s address, per AP. The cause of Burrell’s death was not made clear at first, pending an autopsy. As mentioned, FN confirmed Burrell’s death in a heartfelt post, expressing the network’s profound sadness at the news. Its statement concluded by offering thoughts to Anne’s family, friends, and fans for their “tremendous loss.”
“Anne was a remarkable person and culinary talent teaching, competing and always sharing the importance of food in her life and the joy that a delicious meal can bring,” Food Network also said.
Five weeks after Kim Burrell passed away, new details have been revealed about how she died. According to NBC News, NYC’s chief medical examiner’s office confirmed the former chef died after committing self-harm. The report cited “acute intoxication” from multiple substances as the official cause.
PEOPLE reports that the combined effects of ethanol, diphenhydramine, cetirizine, and amphetamine caused the intoxication. For context, diphenhydramine and cetirizine are antihistamines, and amphetamine can be used to treat ADHD. Ethanol can be found in alcohol.Additionally, the NYT previously reported on June 20 that first responders discovered Anne Burrell unconscious and unresponsive in the shower, surrounded by approximately 100 assorted pills.
Survivors include Anne Burrell’s husband, Stuart Claxton, whom she married in 2021. She was a stepmother to his son. Burrell also leaves behind her mother and two siblings.
“Anne’s light radiated far beyond those she knew, touching millions across the world,” the family said in a statement released by the Food Network.
Burrell was on TV screens as recently as April 2025. In one of her many appearances on NBC’s ‘Today’ show, she cooked chicken Milanese cutlets topped with escarole salad. Additionally, Anne faced off against other top chefs on the Food Network’s ‘House of Knives’ earlier in the spring.
Anna Burrell was born Sept. 21, 1969, in the central New York town of Cazenovia, where her parents ran a flower store. She earned an English and communications degree from Canisius University. Afterward, Anna secured a job as a headhunter but hated it, she said in a 2008 interview with The Post-Standard of Syracuse.
Having always loved cooking, she soon enrolled in the Culinary Institute of America. She graduated in 1996, but later taught at the school. After her 1996 graduation, shespent a year at an Italian culinary school and worked in upscale New York City restaurants for a while.
“Anytime Anne Burrell gets near hot oil, I want to be around,” Frank Bruni, then-food critic at the New York Times, wrote in a 2007 review.
By 2008, Burrell was hosting her own Food Network show, ‘Secrets of a Restaurant Chef,’ and her TV work became a focus. Over the years, she also wrote two cookbooks, ‘Cook Like a Rock Star’ and ‘Own Your Kitchen: Recipes to Inspire and Empower.’ The chef was involved with food pantries, juvenile diabetes awareness campaigns, and other charities.
Ultimately, she became known for her bold and flavorful but not overly fancy dishes, and her spiky platinum-blonde hairdo.
Starting in 2010, Burrell and various co-hosts on ‘Worst Cooks in America’ led teams of kitchen-challenged people through a crash course in tasty self-improvement. On the first show in January of that year, contestants presented such unlikely personal specialties as cayenne pepper and peanut butter on cod, and penne pasta with sauce, cheese, olives, and pineapple.
The accomplished chefs, including Anne Burrell, had to taste the dishes to evaluate them. Burrell confessed in an interview with The Tampa Tribune at the time that it was torturous. Still, Burrell stuck through 27 seasons, making her last appearance in 2024.
“If people want to learn, I absolutely love to teach them,” she said on ABC’s ‘Good Morning America’ in 2020. “It’s just them breaking bad habits and getting out of their own way.”
In her personal life, Burrell’s tastes were simple. She told The Post-Standard that her favorite food was bacon, and her favorite meal was her mother’s tuna fish sandwich.
“Cooking is fun,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be scary. It’s creating something nurturing.”
R.I.P. Anne Burrell!
Associated Press Staff Jennifer Peltz contributed to this report via AP Newsroom.
