Giada De Laurentiis

Her paternal grandmother, Pamela De Benedetti née Leslie-Jones (1923–1998), was also English.

Giada Pamela De Laurentiis (born August 22, 1970) is an Italian American chef, entrepreneur, writer, and television personality.

She was the host of Food Network's program called Giada at Home.

She also appears regularly as a contributor and guest co-host on NBC's program entitled Today.

De Laurentiis is the founder of the catering business GDL Foods.

She is a winner of the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lifestyle Host and the Gracie Award for Best Television Host.

She was also recognized by the International Hospitality Institute as one of the Global 100 in Hospitality, a list featuring the 100 Most Powerful People in Global Hospitality.

Giada Pamela De Benedetti was born on August 22, 1970, in Rome, Italy, the eldest child of actress Veronica De Laurentiis and her first husband, actor-producer Alex De Benedetti.

De Benedetti was a close associate of Giada's maternal grandfather, film producer Dino De Laurentiis.

As a child, Giada often found herself in the family's kitchen and spent a great deal of time at her grandfather's restaurant, DDL Foodshow.

Her parents were married in February 1970 but were later divorced.

After her parents' divorce, Giada and her siblings moved to Southern California, where they took their mother's surname.

After graduating from Marymount High School in Los Angeles, De Laurentiis attended the University of California, Los Angeles, earning her bachelor's degree in social anthropology in 1996.

Her maternal great-grandmother was English and her grandmother was British-Italian film star Silvana Mangano.

She later worked as a food stylist and was contacted by the Food Network after styling a piece in Food & Wine magazine in 2002.

Her siblings include sister Eloisa, a make-up artist, and brothers Igor and Dino Alexander II, a Hollywood film editor who died of melanoma in 2003.

Her stepfather is producer Ivan Kavalsky.

De Laurentiis studied at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, with aspirations of becoming a pastry chef.

After returning to the United States, she became a professional chef working in several Los Angeles restaurants, notably the Wolfgang Puck-owned Spago.

Her daytime cooking show on the Food Network, Everyday Italian, premiered April 5, 2003.

On Chefography, a Food Network biography program, she said she never wanted to be in her "family business" of show business, and that she felt uncomfortable in front of the camera when she first began hosting Everyday Italian.

When the program first aired, the Food Network received mail accusing the network of hiring a model or actress pretending to cook instead of a real chef.

De Laurentiis began hosting Behind the Bash in October 2005.

The program examines the catering process behind big event extravaganzas such as the Grammy Awards.

On a November 2006 episode of Iron Chef America, De Laurentiis and Bobby Flay competed against, and were defeated by, Rachael Ray and Mario Batali.

In January 2007, a third De Laurentiis-hosted show, Giada's Weekend Getaways, debuted on Food Network.

On this show, De Laurentiis travels to a featured locale (including Seattle, South Beach, San Francisco, Napa, and Jackson Hole, Wyoming) and visits her favorite local culinary destinations.

In 2007, De Laurentiis appeared as a presenter at the inaugural Food Network Awards. In June 2007, she hosted a two-part Food Network special entitled Giada in Paradise, featuring the two locales of Santorini, Greece and Capri, Italy.

De Laurentiis also made several appearances as a guest judge on the third season of The Next Food Network Star, which aired in 2007.

That year she was dubbed a "petite powerhouse" by Town & Country magazine, standing "just under five-foot two".

In 2008, she won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lifestyle Host.

In 2008, De Laurentiis and the Barilla Group, launched an Italian gourmet line under the Academia Barilla name—Barilla's first-ever gourmet celebrity product line.

That same year, Giada at Home premiered, showing De Laurentiis in a kitchen preparing meals and parties for family and friends.

The show is shot on a set that is very similar to her own home.

She joined fellow chef Bobby Flay as a judge in season 7 of Food Network Star and took on a new role in season 8 as a team leader of five cooks competing against Bobby Flay's and Alton Brown's respective teams.

In 2009, De Laurentiis became the voice of "Paulette", a character on the animated children's show Handy Manny.

In early 2010, De Laurentiis came out with a line of kitchen supplies, exclusively for Target.

That same year, CafeMom ranked her as #6 on their yearly "Sexiest Moms Alive" list.

In June 2010, De Laurentiis became a regularly appearing mentor to the finalists on the popular Food Network competition show The Next Food Network Star.

In July 2014, De Laurentiis opened her first restaurant, called GIADA, inside The Cromwell in Las Vegas, Nevada.