Ten years in the past, Sandra Lee had all of it: a lady raised in poverty who’d turn into a massively profitable entrepreneur, starring in her Emmy-winning TV present, Semi-Do-it-yourself Cooking. The upbeat queen of pantry hacks, 58, was additionally the longtime accomplice of good-looking and dynamic politician Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York. After which her life — a seemingly excellent mixture of magnificence and suburban sensibility akin to her iconic tablescapes — derailed quickly.
First got here the breast most cancers prognosis in March 2015, leading to a double mastectomy and full hysterectomy. Lee’s ongoing most cancers therapy left her unable to proceed her hit TV sequence, and it ended later that 12 months after 15 seasons. Nonetheless, the worst was but to come back. In 2019, her relationship with Cuomo, 66, imploded, touchdown the fiercely personal Lee in the course of a chronic and really public scandal. As photographers documented each step of the top of that relationship, Lee fled New York for L.A. and withdrew from public life.
“After I obtained sick, I used to be so wired and overwhelmed that when the Meals Community canceled me, I didn’t have the vitality to struggle them,” Lee tells Us Weekly of the destiny of Semi-Do-it-yourself.
The girl who sits down with Us in the lounge of her Malibu house is a far cry from the Sandra Lee of previous. Gone is the perky 50s throwback kitsch that outlined Semi-Do-it-yourself. As an alternative is somebody who’s gone via hell and are available out happier, decided and extra genuine. Now she’s lastly robust sufficient to speak about what occurred. “I’ve resigned myself to the truth that I’ll by no means recover from the heartbreak of lack of the final 10 years,” she says wistfully. “The grief has been infinite however I’ll use it to gas and feed me and make me wiser and stronger.”
Lee pauses to sip her (constructed from scratch!) iced tea, her makeup-free face radiant within the pure mild. She stares out of her window, tears in her eyes, as she takes within the view: the Pacific Ocean glowing calmly as a pod of dolphins makes its method up the coast. “I’d say,” she continues, lastly, “that I’ve had probably the most difficult decade of my life.”
Darkish Occasions
To name her evaluation an understatement is placing it mildly. However the Sandra Lee of as we speak is able to get again to the enterprise of residing. She has two new TV sequence, Dinner Price range Showdown on Roku and Blue Ribbon Baking Championship premiering August 9 on Netflix. She additionally simply celebrated her third anniversary with Ben Youcef, a good-looking youthful man who swept in and taught Lee to like — and to belief — yet again.
It wasn’t straightforward. Cuomo, who appeared as a faithful and supportive accomplice in Lee’s documentary about her most cancers therapy, may apparently be a distinct individual behind the scenes. More and more distant, he spent increasingly time other than Lee. A spokesperson for Cuomo tells Us: “Governor Cuomo has all the time been completely supportive of Sandra via good instances and unhealthy. She partnered with him, frolicked with [his] women, and dealt with features as first woman very properly. Sandra and the Governor had separate and busy lives and grew aside over time. Breakups are all the time tough and there are all the time two sides of the story, however the Governor chooses to concentrate on the optimistic and he needs her nothing however success and happiness within the years forward.”
Many celebrities have spoken out about their private battles with breast most cancers through the years. Julia Louis-Dreyfus went public together with her breast most cancers prognosis in September 2017 through Instagram. Practically one 12 months later, she had efficiently crushed the sickness and returned to work on Veep. “It sounds type of corny, however there’s one thing about after […]
Lee’s self-described lowest level got here in the course of the day of her birthday in 2015 following her double mastectomy.
“Most cancers is aggressive and difficult, and it hides and waits,” Lee says of her battle with the illness, which she was recognized with that very same 12 months. “I needed to spend a 12 months coping with that, as aggressively as I may.”
In most cancers therapy, any birthday is important, a marker of private success towards the illness. “I spent the day on my own. I used to be sitting on my garden alone,” Lee says. (Cuomo denies this and says he cleared his schedule to be there.) “My birthday was a valuable day to me, particularly that one. I’m not somebody who feels sorry for themselves, however that day was a bit a lot for me.” Lee provides he ultimately got here residence and so they went out for dinner, however the harm was achieved.
Their relationship continued to deteriorate. In spring 2019, Cuomo made a comment, and it was the straw that broke the camel’s again. “I used to be in my kitchen,” she remembers, “and he mentioned one thing, and the minute he mentioned it, I knew what he’d simply mentioned. And each window and door closed. And that was it.” Lee’s dedication to integrity makes it unimaginable for her to disclose what was really mentioned. “He is aware of what it’s; I do know what it’s,” she tells Us, refusing to elaborate additional. Cuomo says that he didn’t see Lee throughout this time interval.
Breaking Level
After enduring the media protection of the break up — a humiliating time that Lee will solely describe as “s–tty” — one other tragedy rocked her world. A beloved uncle on the West Coast turned terminally unwell, and Lee instantly devoted herself to caring for him. “My job was to purchase him time,” she says. “And I did.” Lee made positive to get a lot of her uncle’s bucket record completed earlier than he succumbed to his sickness, and his December 2023 loss of life, although immensely painful to her, additionally proved cathartic.
“I went into the toilet and simply began throwing up,” she says quietly. “I believe that was my physique simply purging that 5 years of time.” Lee pauses. “Truly, that needed to be the bottom level of my life, leaning over a bathroom, vomiting from disappointment and grief.”
Round this time, after stepping up so courageously in the course of the pandemic, her ex Cuomo’s life and profession fell aside amidst quite a few accusations of sexually inappropriate habits with feminine staffers. (Cuomo denied the allegations and said that any suggestion he was untrue to Lee was false.) The controversy turned a media snowball because the allegations piled up, in the end ending his tenure as governor. The scandal introduced Cuomo and Lee’s breakup again into the highlight, and the renewed consideration threatened to engulf her. When requested in regards to the allegations, Lee takes the excessive highway, refusing to invest on what occurred.
Lee nonetheless refuses to debate her painful break up from Cuomo intimately, saying solely, “Once you dwell separate lives, you aren’t making a life collectively.”
Dream Man
Sandra Lee and Ben Youcef attend Elton John AIDS Basis’s thirty second Annual Academy Awards Viewing Social gathering in March 2024. Dia Dipasupil/WireImage
For Lee, there was a lightweight on the finish of the tunnel: Within the midst of the turmoil, she discovered love. “Assembly Ben was unbelievable,” Lee enthuses. “It was the right intersection of timing and chemistry.” Nonetheless, she was “terrified” of starting something and it took months earlier than something occurred with Youcef. “I hadn’t been intimate in years and years. I actually felt like a virgin at 55,” says Lee, “and I simply didn’t need to get entangled once more.”
Youcef, 46, was mild and protracted, not even making an attempt to kiss Lee till they’d been relationship for 2 months. “He lastly kissed me and I stood there stone-still,” Lee remembers. “He saved his lips on mine, and my thoughts simply went clean. I nonetheless didn’t kiss him again.”
When Lee known as him the next day to apologize for her odd habits, Youcef brushed it apart. “He waited and continued, and right here we’re,” she says with a smile, including that she not has any issues relating to intimacy. “My chemistry with Ben is one thing that I’ve by no means had earlier than,” she says. “It’s psychological, it’s emotional, and it’s a connection that I can’t even describe.”
The connection is signified by the dedication rings that the couple put on. When requested to distinction Youcef with Cuomo, she thinks for a minute earlier than answering. “Ben could be very affected person, and he’s very clear,” she says lastly. “He checks in on a regular basis, and shares every thing with me. He loves serving to folks with out agenda or motive. He actually tries to be a greater human each day.”
Candy Spot
With the romantic aspect of her life below management, Lee turned her consideration again to TV. Her newest undertaking, Blue Ribbon Baking Championship, is a cooking competitors set within the cutthroat world of state honest baking contests. The concept first got here to Lee 12 years in the past, impressed by her personal experiences as a blue-ribbon-winning baker on the 1992 Los Angeles County Honest. “These persons are probably the most aggressive within the nation,” she says. “We combed the nation for the most effective bakers in america. One lady, Eileen, has 700 ribbons!”
Angelina Jolie is not alone. Christina Applegate, Giuliana Rancic, and Sharon Osbourne — amongst others — have additionally undergone surgical procedure to deal with or scale back their threat of breast most cancers
On high of Blue Ribbon Baking Championship, Lee is again in full swing, with, fittingly, “a baker’s dozen” different initiatives in varied levels of improvement. And on the finish of the day, she miraculously can look again on the previous 10 years with positivity and optimism. “All of us undergo ache and harm,” she says. “You’re both at first, the center or the top of harm and ache. It’s life. It’s a cycle. And you then get these wonderful runs of happiness that make all of it price it,” she pauses, looking for the proper phrases. “My life was a nightmare that slowly was a dream.”
As Lee returns to the general public eye, she has a brand new mantra from an unlikely supply. “I discovered some life administration strategies from Taylor Swift,” she says with fun. “I test in with myself typically, really discuss to myself. ‘Is it OK with you, Sandy? Does this be just right for you? Have you ever made this error earlier than?’”
Because the interview winds down, Lee is relaxed and at peace. When requested if there’s something she’d like to depart readers with, her reply is immediate. “Loving,” she says with an enormous smile, “makes life price residing.”
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With reporting by Amanda Williams