Former TV chef Pete Evans opened up about his brutal fall from grace after being canceled and brutally trolled for “wanting to kill babies,” and how this is key to his lasting bond with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The former My Kitchen Rules host said he quickly went from being “the boy next door” to being derided as a bizarre conspiracy theorist after speaking out against Big Pharma and processed foods.
“The real kind of attacks that happened to me was when I started talking about dietary principles, right?” Evans said in an extraordinary interview with radio hosts Kyle Sandilands and Jackie ‘O’ Henderson.
“I was the boy next door on TV and then all of a sudden I said, ‘You can actually improve your health by eating organic produce, eating high-quality meats and seafood, and avoiding processed foods.'”
‘As soon as I started saying that, and the books became bestsellers… that’s when the attacks started happening because… they disrupt the systems that are in place to keep people sick.
“It’s like, ‘We have to stop this, we have to stop this right now.'”
Evans agreed with Sandilands’ suggestion that “the big corporations were leaving, how are we going to shut this guy up?”
He said his cancellation was driven by the same business entities now targeting RFK Jr following his election by Donald Trump as US health secretary.
‘100% (that’s what happened), just like they’re doing with Bobby,’ he said.
Pete Evans and Robert F Kennedy Jr have forged a firm friendship and are publishing a new cookbook together in a bid to help tackle America’s terrible childhood obesity epidemic.
The chef spoke about his brutal fall from grace against Kyle Sandilands and Jackie Henderson.
Kennedy is one of Donald Trump’s most trusted allies and is his choice for US health secretary.
Kennedy, who has promised to reform America’s health organizations if his nomination is confirmed by the Senate, wants to focus on solving the country’s childhood obesity epidemic, in part by better educating people about healthy eating.
“It’s a very good idea and it’s so simple that it’s common sense,” Evans said.
“Bobby has been celebrated over the years; you know, he was Time’s Hero of the Year when he cleaned up New York’s waterway system, and he won huge lawsuits against chemical companies.
“So it was once the favorite…until it pretty much touched children’s health and that kind of upsets the system, so to speak, that’s in place.”
Evans’ comments came after Daily Mail Australia revealed this week that the TV presenter and fired chef had teamed up with Kennedy to launch a new cooking guide aimed at children.
The cookbook written by Evans, Healthy Food for Healthy Kids, boasts that it will include 120 ‘paleo and keto foods your child will love’ when it is published by Kennedy’s advocacy group, Children’s Health Defense, on January 28.
Evans credited his close friend RFK Jr for personally arranging the deal after announcing the upcoming launch to his 41,000 followers on messaging app Telegram.
Speaking about the high-profile collaboration, he said he was the one who brought Kennedy the idea of working together on a cookbook.
Evans this week credited Kennedy with personally landing him a publishing deal for his latest cookbook aimed at children’s unhealthy eating habits.
The chef was once one of Australia’s most bankable stars, raking in $800,000 a year fronting the hit reality show My Kitchen Rules on Channel Seven alongside co-host Manu Feildel.
“I asked (RFK Jr) and said, ‘I would love to work with Children’s Health Defense,’ which is the nonprofit he created,” she told Sandilands and Henderson.
“I said, ‘I have a lot of prescriptions (but) they’ve canceled me in Australia. Can we work together with Children’s Health Defense to publish a book to help parents?”‘
The release will mark Evan’s first return to food writing since his former editor, Pan MacMillan, dropped his book deal amid its brutal cancellation.
It also comes after his latest similarly themed cookbook aimed at children, Bubba Yum Yum: The Paleo Way, was met with widespread controversy and its publisher canceled its release, amid claims that it promoted a restrictive diet and potentially fatal.
Evans said he had been forced to self-publish the book, co-written with nutritionist Helen Padarin and blogger Charlotte Carr, after his critics launched into a recipe for “baby-strengthening bone broth.”
“Let me clarify one thing…we have always promoted breast milk as the best milk for children,” Evans said.
‘But they (the media) decided to publish that “Pete wants to feed the children bone broth instead of breast milk,” so immediately there is a lie.
“Once they take the toothpaste out of the tube, it’s very hard to put it back in because even today people say, ‘Oh, he’s that guy who wants to kill babies because he doesn’t want them to have breast milk.'”
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‘Drink breast milk if you can…there was a recipe in the book we featured that was from Sally Fallon’s book called Nourishing Traditions, which has been around for so long, and we were looking for an alternative to infant formula that could’ Don’t drink breast milk or formula.
‘Is there anything else we can give a baby? We actually reduced the amount of liver (in the recipe) because that was the questionable thing.
“It’s just another option or a solution for people looking to keep their baby alive.”
The social media giant removed Evans’ Facebook and Instagram accounts after it accused him of “repeatedly sharing debunked claims about the coronavirus or vaccines” at the height of the pandemic.
But the fallen star said he had never tried, or wanted, to influence other people’s thought processes.
“The last thing I want to do is force someone to think a certain way,” he said.
‘That’s the last thing I would do. I firmly believe that everyone has free will as long as it doesn’t harm anyone else.
“I’m just saying be aware, educate yourself.”
Fired TV chef says he’s also been inspired by Trump’s words of wisdom
Although Evans’ ‘cancellation’ has cost him dearly, he credits it with helping him appreciate and value what is truly important.
“I have a wonderful life: I have a beautiful wife, wonderful children, healthy children,” he said.
“I like what Trump once said: sometimes you have to lose everything to come back, but also to see things as they are.”
“And I’ve always trusted this process and I think: trust, surrender, accept and stick to your core values, which I’ve always had.”
‘Part of it, from my point of view, is that sometimes you have to go through it to see it and feel it.
“We have to trust our own intuition, our own instructions.”
As for his future, Evans said he was focusing on his upcoming cookbook with Kennedy for the moment, but had not ruled out attempting a post-cancellation comeback in his home country later on.
“What will happen over the next decade is that people will start asking more questions,” he told Sandilands and Henderson.
‘With all the technological advances that have occurred in science and medicine, why are so many people sick?
‘And I honestly believe there is a simple solution to this: having good food… and education has to be part of that.
“The tide is turning… you never know, we might write another book here or whatever here in Australia.”