Giada De Laurentiis Facts

1 She was born in Rome.

Image Source: Getty / Dr. Billy Ingram

Giada's the daughter of actress Veronica De Laurentiis and actor/producer Alex De Benedetti.

1 / 12

2 She graduated from UCLA with a bachelor's degree in Social Anthropology.

2 / 12

3 Her real passion was cooking, so she decided to begin her culinary career by heading to Paris and enrolling at Le Cordon Bleu.

Image Source: Getty / Riccardo S. Savi

Giada completed training at the culinary school in Paris in hopes of becoming a pastry chef.

3 / 12

4 She started her career on Food Network with practically no on-camera experience.

Image Source: Getty / Bob Riha Jr

She was discovered after a network executive read an article about her and her family in Food and Wine magazine. "An executive at the Food Network found the article and read the recipes, and called me up saying he was looking to do an Italian cooking show and asked if I had experience. He said he had seen my recipes and seen me but didn't know how I'd be on camera, so he asked me to put together a demo. Nine months later I did it, and Everyday Italian was born — purely accidentally," Giada explained in an interview with Food and Wine.

4 / 12

5 She has nine successful cookbooks.

Giada is a New York Times bestselling author with nine publications under her name. Her most popular is her first, Everyday Italian, and her most recent is Giada's Italy: My Recipes For La Dolce Vita, which was published in March 2018.

5 / 12

6 She opened her first restaurant in Las Vegas in July 2014.

Appropriately called Giada, the chef's first restaurant is located inside the Cromwell hotel in Vegas.

6 / 12

7 She has cooked for Prince William and Kate Middleton.

Image Source: Getty

In 2011, Giada cooked a royal menu of grilled vegetable towers, shrimp and avocado salad with frico chips, chicken and crunchy slaw in endive leaves, and Prosecco and scotch whiskey juleps. She described it as "an experience of a lifetime. Honestly, probably third to getting married and having my daughter. It was an unbelievable day, but even leading up to it was phenomenal." Giada also noted that the royal couple is "very much into food."

7 / 12

8 Like most of us, she had braces!

Giada shared this throwback photo of herself with the caption, "my '80s look."

8 / 12

9 Her grandfather, Dino De Laurentiis, was a renowned film producer.

Image Source: Getty / Rob Loud

Dino passed away in 2010, but he remains a legacy in the world of film. Thirty-eight of his 100+ films were nominated for Academy Awards. He also had a successful Italian restaurant and specialty foods store called DDL Foodshow, where Giada spent a lot of time in the kitchen growing up.

9 / 12

10 Her nonna, aka grandmother, was a total stunner.

That's where she got her good looks! Giada shared this 1940's image of her gorgeous grandma on Instagram.

10 / 12

11 Her favorite way to start the day is with yoga.

There's no doubt Giada is a busy woman, but staying healthy and happy is important to her, so she regularly practices yoga.

11 / 12

12 She won an Emmy award.

Image Source: Getty / Michael Buckner

That's right — Giada is an Emmy-award-winning chef. She's been nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award four times, and she took home the win in 2008 for outstanding lifestyle host for her first show, Everyday Italian.

12 / 12