The star of the Food Network’s Diners, Drive-ins and Dives took a fine toasting in the Minneapolis-St. Paul’s City Pages story “Guy Fieri in Diners, Drive-Ins, and Disasters.” Featuring excoriating commentary from Fieri’s ex-producer, David Page, the story levels a number of fairly scandalous (and mostly amusing) charges against Mr. Fieri, including:

• Fieri was “weirded out” by gay people, and “show researchers were required to note any indications of homosexuality detected during pre-interviews,” says Page and another ex-producer for the show.

• Fieri has roaming eyes and a dirty mind: “You have to protect Guy from all of his poop jokes,” Page reports in the City Pages story. “Anytime any woman mentioned ‘cream,’ Guy went into a sexual riff. When cutting the show, you had to tell the editors to watch Guy’s eye line, because it’s always on breasts.”

• After stardom went to Fieri’s head, he took to hanging out with a posse called the Garlic Mafia, with friends like Gorilla, Kleetus, and Dirty P. Fieri’s manager called himself “the consigliore,” and Fieri regarded himself as the mob boss.

• Fieri wears sunglasses indoors.

Curious if these charges were accurate, CHOW.com made contact with a former production worker on the Food Network show, a woman who asked to be called “Jane” due to the tenets of the nondisclosure agreement she signed as she left the show. “Basically, everything in that City Pages article was true about both of them. Fieri had ridiculous requests at all hours of the day. He knew most of us lived in Central Time, but he would regularly make requests after 11 p.m. He would have shoots rescheduled around getting his hair done. He refused to fly on certain airlines. I don’t think anyone actually liked him.”

Jane says the whole experience left such a bad taste in her mouth that she exited television production altogether.

Maybe if she’d just given herself a nickname like Dirty J she could have stuck it out.

Image source: Foodnetwork.com