Rachael Ray revealed that she’s grateful just to be alive after suffering two tragedies at her New York properties roughly one year apart from one another.
In August of 2020, the celebrity TV chef, 53, revealed that her house in Lake Luzerne, New York burned down in a fire. The cause was determined to be an issue that started in her fireplace chimney that allowed flames to spread on the roof.
Ray, her husband John Cusimano and their dog Bella were luckily not harmed in the fire. However, she stated in a video showing the aftermath of the blaze that she did lose “15 years of memories; 40 years of notebooks, drawing, thoughts, my life’s work.”
In September, she revealed that her New York City apartment was one of the many to suffer flooding damage after record-breaking and unexpected rainfall damaged a large portion of the city. As if that wasn’t bad enough, her beloved dog passed away amid the coronavirus pandemic as well.
RACHAEL RAY’S NEW YORK HOUSE FIRE BEGAN IN HER CHIMNEY, OFFICIALS SAY
Rachael Ray discussed the flooding in her New York City apartment.
(John Lamparski/Getty Images for NYCWFF)
In an interview with Extra, Ray explained that, despite the struggles she’s experienced this year, she noted that she’s most grateful for “being alive.”
“When I lost my dog I was so grateful that I could be with her the last several month of her life,” she explained. “She died in my arms… I felt guilty and grateful at the same time… People suffered actual human loss from COVID or because they couldn’t get care… and how many people died alone.”
She continued by noting that the loss the world suffered during the pandemic put her material losses into perspective.
RACHAEL RAY’S UPSTATE NEW YORK HOME DAMAGED IN FIRE
“The fire, the chimney burped under the roof, that’s just life,” she explained. “So many people wrote to me and reached out and said we lost so much too, I mean that’s just bad luck… The apartment, we weren’t there… Leaks became bigger and the roof became worse and we thought we had repaired everything… then Ida… the whole apartment, was just raining inside.”
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Rachael Ray opened up about the fire that took her New York home last year.
(Getty Images/Getty Images for NYCWFF)
Ray’s comments echo those she said at the time of the fire, noting that not only could things have been worse, but that she was grateful to first responders for making sure everyone was OK.
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“Thank you to our local first responders for being kind and gracious and saving what they could of our home. Grateful that my mom, my husband, my dog… we’re all okay. These are the days we all have to be grateful for what we have, not what we’ve lost,” she wrote. “…I *did* lose my phone (posting through a team member) Thank you for all the well wishes, concern and outreach, but can’t return texts and calls at the moment…!”
