Larry Busacca
Rachael Ray is coming clean about her life at home with her husband, John Cusimano, revealing the pair get in heated arguments all the time because “that’s healthy.”
Ray, 56, opened up about her hands-on approach to conflict during the debut episode of her new podcast, “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead” with her first guest, Jenny Mollen.
“It’s very hard, especially for hot-tempered or creative or vociferous loud people to be able to just calm it down,” the celebrity TV chef stated. “John and I don’t calm it down ever. We have huge screaming matches all the time, but I think that’s healthy. I really do. And I don’t trust people that are too quiet.”
Ray, who will hit her 20-year marriage mark with Cusimano in 2025, went on to elaborate what she meant by that.
“Too quiet freaks me out,” she continued. “I prefer that you tell me what you think when you think it and let’s just get it all out there.”
Mollen, who’s been married to “American Pie” actor Jason Biggs for 16 years, pushed Ray further and asked which one of them apologizes first after their heated discussions.
“I don’t know that we ever apologize to each other,” Ray replied. “Eventually I pat him on his ass or he kisses me on the head, and that’s just sort of it. That’s the apology. It’s just sort of understood. ‘I still like your ass.’ ‘I still like your head.’ It’s kind of in that zone.”
Ray also shared her first impression of Cusimano, revealing she thought he swung for the opposite team when he first asked her out.
“When we met, he had no idea what I did, and I thought he was gay,” she said. “He told me what he had made for dinner the night before, and it was so impressive, and he told me he was a lawyer. There’s no way a straight guy knows what tilapia is, or he was trying to spice it up with some homemade tomatillo salsa and he made maque choux spilling out of an avocado on the side.”
She even tried to set him up on a blind date.
“I said, ‘He’s a great guy’ and I started to describe him, and he said ‘I’m not gay,’” Ray laughed. “And I’m like ‘Check, please!’”
This isn’t the first time that Ray has disclosed details of her marriage. In 2022, she told People that her and her husband “balance each other.”
“We have volatile personalities but we’re both very practical. too,” she shared. “That’s the lawyer side of him and the domestic side of me. We’re like, ‘These are the things that must be accomplished today. And we will get to this only by doing what work is necessary.’”
Ray announced her podcast in October after sparking health concerns when she appeared to slur her words while talking about a dinner party with Tony Bennett.
In an Instagram video, she recalled the time the late singer came over for dinner and slipped on her polished kitchen floor; however, her comments filled up with worried fans.
Ray never addressed the rumors.