After 56 years of marriage, Ina Garten and her husband Jeffrey seem to have the perfect relationship, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t had their share of rough patches.
After revealing their shocking – albeit brief – split in the 1970s, Ina opened up about the “really scary” conversation she had with her husband that led to their brief separation 10 years into their marriage.
“We took a walk on the beach and I said, ‘I need to be alone for a while,'” Ina, 76, told TODAY host Hoda Kotb in a sneak peek of their upcoming interview shared Wednesday.
The Barefoot Contessa, who married Jeffrey, 77, in 1968, admitted his response made it even more difficult.
“What made it even harder was that he said, ‘If you feel like you need to be alone, you need to be alone,'” she recalled.
Ina, 76, told TODAY host Hoda Kotb that she had to have a “scary” conversation with her husband Jeffrey in the 1970s.
The cook and author said Jeffrey later returned to Washington, where she was working at the time, and she did not go with him, but she has no regrets.
“I felt like I had said the right thing, but it was really scary because I said it to someone I loved deeply,” she said.
Ina had been working in a government job, but left and bought a grocery store in New York called Barefoot Contessa in 1978.
In an excerpt from her upcoming memoir, Be Ready When the Luck Happens, Ina explained that after she began running her own business, she realized she could no longer “live with him in the traditional ‘man and woman’ relationship.”
“When I bought Barefoot Contessa, I broke our traditional roles: I gave them a baseball bat and beat them to pieces,” he wrote.
‘While I cooked, cleaned, shopped, ran the store, I did so as a businesswoman, not as a wife.’
She added that her husband had done nothing wrong, she simply could not live in a “traditional man-woman” relationship with him and had to face her new career alone.
“He was simply doing what every man before him had done. But we were living in a new era and that behavior no longer seemed right to me. I had changed,” she said.
After revealing their shocking – albeit brief – split in the 1970s, Ina opened up about the “really scary” conversation she had with her husband that led to their brief separation.
The chef sat down with Hoda ahead of the release of her memoir Be Ready When the Luck Happens, out October 1.
They spent six weeks apart before they finally decided to give their love another chance as “equals,” and have been happily in love ever since. They are seen in 2015.
In an excerpt from her memoirs, Ina explained that after she started running her own business, she realized she could no longer “live with him in the traditional ‘man and woman’ relationship.”
The 76-year-old cook and author revealed to People that she and Jeffrey, 77, split in the 1970s when she was just starting her career. They are seen together early in their marriage.
The successful chef admitted that her immense “responsibilities” as a shop owner made it “impossible for her to even think about anything else” and confessed that she “did not pay enough attention” to her husband.
“There was no expectation about who came home from work first and what they were supposed to do, because I never came home from work,” he continued.
“I didn’t pay enough attention to it. I just wanted everyone to leave me alone so I could focus on the store.”
She added that Jeffrey was “fully formed” and living the life he had always imagined, but she was still finding herself.
“I wouldn’t have been able to figure out who I was or what I wanted unless I was alone,” she wrote in her memoir. “I needed that freedom.”
Although she initially considered divorcing Jeffrey, she ultimately opted for separation as it took her time to figure out what she really wanted.
The beloved couple spent six weeks apart before finally deciding to give their love another chance as “equals.”
Ina revealed that Jeffrey saw a therapist during that time, which was “meaningful” to her.
“He was determined to convince me that he was serious about making our marriage work,” she said, adding that it changed the way they handled their relationship and communicated going forward.
“In the future, we could be equals and take care of each other. It won’t happen overnight, but if we work towards the same goal, we could change things together,” the popular chef added.
For more than two decades, Ina built Barefoot Contessa into a thriving business, before releasing her first cookbook in 1999, which launched her to mega-stardom.
She then began making frequent appearances on the Martha Stewart show before landing her own show on the Food Network, called Barefoot Contessa, in 2002.
Since then, Ina has published a total of 13 cookbooks and embarked on a number of other business ventures; her show ran for 29 seasons before coming to an end in 2021.
Since their brief split, Jeffrey has been by her side through everything, and they are still happily in love now, decades later.
On his 77th birthday last November, Ina shared an emotional tribute to him.
“Happy birthday to my dear husband Jeffrey. I have loved you madly for almost 60 years and I’m just getting started,” she gushed.
The memoirs of Ina Garten Band Ready When the Luck Happens will be released on October 1st.
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