Bobby Deen

Bobby Deen is a famous celebrity chef, restaurant manager, and television personality who is most known for being the son of famous chef, Paula Deen.

Background

Robert Earl Deen was born on April 28, 1970 in Albany, Georgia. His mother is Paula Deen and his elder brother is Jamie.  He got his name from his grandfather, Earl Hiers and his granduncle Bob Hiers.

In an interview with the San Diego Entertainer, Bobby described how life was with being raised by Paula Deen, “Oh my God. It was fattening. First of all, I grew up in a very loving traditional southern home with a close family, and my mother, it’s interesting to note, that when my mother married my father she couldn’t cook at all. She learned how to cook by having a family, but it was good, in the south in particular, the kitchen really is the heart of the home. Everything happens around it, so growing up with people with a mother and father who like to cook kept us close. I think that it’s something that is maybe, and I’m not married and I don’t have any children so I can’t speak on this, as if I did, but I think that it would be a good thing if more families got in the kitchen together. It’s where conversations happen. Organic natural conversations where you can be next to family members. It’s just a positive thing, so growing up in Paula Deen’s house was great in the amount of love that we had and we shared for one another in the family.”

Television and Cooking Career

Together with his brother Jamie, they had their own television show called Road Tasted that started in the year 2006. The Deen brothers afterwards decided that they would devote more time to the family restaurant and they stopped their work on Road Tasted. After the brothers left, the name of the show was changed to Road Tasted with the Neelys and it featured new Hosts, Gina Neely and Pat Neely.

Being the second son of famous chef Paula Deen gave Bobby a unique childhood. Bobby and his brother, Jamie wanted to repay their mother for all the great cooking she did for them. They decided to operate her restaurant, The Lady & Sons, in Savannah, Georgia. He also frequently appears on his mother’s television shows, Paula's Home Cooking and Paula's Party.

He was the host of cooking competitions called Holiday Baking Championship and the Spring Baking Championship of Food Network. He also worked as a co-host of the Junk Food Flip which aired on the Cooking Channel.

In 2012, he started the cooking show called Not My Mama’s Meals which aired on The Cooking Channel. He tweaked the recipe of his mother’s cooking so that they could be healthier for his audience. When asked why he decided to start his own cooking show, Bobby said, “Well, my mother and my brother and I have worked closely together for a lot of years. It’s wonderful, but it also has its own constraints. My mother is a giant entity of herself so she absorbs a lot of light and my brother is a married man with a family and our lives are just different. We had a television show together on the food network about 7 years ago called “Road Tasted.” It was great and a lot fun, but it was a travel show and it wasn’t conducive to a good marriage and raising a family.”

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Bobby would say out loud to people that he was going to have a television show on his own but he actually had no idea what he was talking about. Nobody actually told him that he could have his own show. He was saying it so that his positive thinking would cause the show to come to fruition. Now he has his show on the Cooking Channel which is a subsidiary of the Food Network. The viewership is smaller than the main channel, but it’s growing. His show is number one on the Cooking Channel. It’s the number one show on the network and that makes him really proud.  He wants to do the same thing for Cooking Channel that his mother did for Food Network”

He likes to talk to people about food and how your body and food have a symbiotic relationship that cannot be ignored. Everything that he does on his show is really the way that he lives his life. His diet contains more vegetables, more fruits, less refined sugar, less salt. He advises people to get rid of the processed foods and to lower the preservatives in the foods that they consume.

In 2015, together with his brother Jamie, they started to film the show Southern Fried Road trip which would air on the Food Network. They were in search of the best local and handcrafted foods.

Personal Life

In 2006, he was listed as one of the 50 Most Eligible Bachelors’ list in People Magazine. He announced his engagement in 2013 to Claudia Lovera. Bobby Deen’s wife is a commercial producer and they started to date when he was still in his early 30s.

He talked about their wedding on Fox & Friends which airs on the Fox News Channel. They got married and held the ceremony at his mother’s house. Their wedding was a surprise wedding from her mother and the friends and family were there to witness the exchanging of their vows. In attendance, there were around 75 people and Claudia’s family came from Panama to attend.

The couple decided to get a huge catholic wedding so that all their friend and relatives could attend. The two have no children yet and they have not stated that they will be expecting one soon.

Bobby Deen has been financially successfully with his work as co-manager of the family restaurant and his appearances with his brother on television. With everything he does on his own or with his family, he has been able to make a net worth of over 5 million dollars.

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