Rachael Ray Says She Needs ‘Space’ From Her Husband John Cusimano: ‘He Understands’

Rachael Ray isn’t a stranger to sharing the ugly truth about marriage, and the culinary superstar recently revealed that she often needs space from her husband, John Cusimano.

“I am very wildly, wildly, wildly lucky that I have my husband,” Rachael, 56, told guest Billy Crudup during the Tuesday, October 29, episode of her “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead” podcast. “But he understands I need my space. He needs his space.”

That wasn’t the first time she shared a glimpse inside her marriage on the podcast. In fact, Rachael admitted to getting into “huge screaming matches” with John, 57, during the October 21 episode, which was the first episode of the podcast.

“It’s very hard, especially for hot-tempered or creative or vociferous loud people to be able to just calm it down,” the former Rachael Ray Show host told Jenny Mollen at the time. “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.”

The TV host went on to explain that “too quiet freaks [her] out.” She prefers that her husband tells her what he thinks and “let’s just get it all out there.”

More surprisingly, Rachael revealed that she thought John was gay when they first met in 2001.

“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 recalled. “I said, ‘He’s a great guy’ and I started to describe him, and he said ‘I’m not gay.’ And I’m like ‘Check, please!’”

Despite their heightened arguments, Rachael and John are nearing their 20th wedding anniversary after tying the knot in 2005.

Since getting married, the power couple have separately built their brand as he worked on the legalities as an entertainment lawyer and Rachael continues to star on the silver screen. Given their busy schedules, Rachael and John decided not to have children.

“I work too much to be an appropriate parent. I feel like a bad mom to my dog some days because I’m just not here enough,” the Food Network chef told People in 2007. “I just feel like I would do a bad job if I actually took the time to literally give birth to a kid right now and try and juggle everything I’m doing.”

Rachael echoed the sentiment two years later saying, “I think that I’m 40 years old, and I have an enormous amount of hours that have to be dedicated to work. For me personally, I would need more time to feel like I’d be a good mom to my own child. I feel like a borderline good mom to my dog. So, I can’t imagine if it was a human baby. … I feel like it would be unfair, not only to the child but to the people I work with.”