Guy Fieri, a beloved, if occasionally controversial, figure in the food world, has shared a harrowing story about a fatal car accident he was once involved in.
The Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives host appeared on Tuesday’s episode of the Now What? with Brooke Shields podcast, where he revealed that he was falsely accused of drunk driving and causing a fatal crash while he was a student at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Fieri explained that he was riding in the backseat of a car with a group of men he’d met while watching drag boat racing. They had all been drinking, Fieri said, and were headed to a nearby campsite when tragedy struck.
“[The driver] saw a cop and he was drinking,” he told Shields. “We were camping a half a mile way. And he took off and we got chased and the car flipped. And the guy next to me was killed. It was horrific. Everybody was messed up.”
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Fieri said he woke up after the accident “handcuffed to the gurney” in a hospital and that “everybody in that car [said] I was the one that was driving.” He was later arrested in his dorm room, but fortunately, he said, “the cops knew I wasn’t [responsible].”
Nevertheless, the incident, which happened when the Food Network host was 19, profoundly shaped his life, he told Shields.
“It’s things I teach my kids all the time,” Fieri said. “Don’t trust anybody to drive you. Don’t trust what anybody puts in a drink and gives it to you. Don’t trust if anybody tells you that this is safe or this is smart. You have to be the master of your domain. You have to be in control of your environment.”
