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Rachael Ray talked about her love for Italy during an interview with PEOPLE while hosting Blue Moon Burger Bash 2.0 at the New York City Wine & Food Festival“I live there as long and as much as I can,” the celebrity cook and TV host saidRay’s husband, John Cusimano, prefers New York, she added
Rachael Ray loves the Italian way of living.
While hosting Blue Moon Burger Bash 2.0 at the New York City Wine & Food Festival on Friday, Oct. 17, the celebrity cook and TV personality told PEOPLE of Italy, “I live there as long and as much as I can.”
However, her husband of 20 years, John Cusimano, is a New Yorker at heart.
“My husband loves New York, prefers New York,” Ray says. “And he has a rock ‘n’ roll band, and so he spends a lot of time here. I spend as much time as I can there. We work in both places.”
“I tell John all the time, however much time he wants to spend here, do it,” she adds.
Rachael Ray and Brooklyn Peltz Beckham attend the Blue Moon Burger Bash 2.0.
Cindy Ord/Getty
The couple share an apartment in N.Y.C. and a home upstate in Lake Luzerne that they had rebuilt after it was destroyed in a massive fire in August 2020.
The same month Ray bid farewell to her syndicated daytime talk show, The Rachael Ray Show, in May 2023, she shared on Instagram that she was “spending more time in Italy,” and the following year posted snaps from various Italian destinations, such as a sunset in the Tuscan island of Elba and a birthday celebration for Cusimano in Puglia.
Ray also celebrated her love for Italian cuisine with Rachael Ray in Tuscany, a series that premiered in 2024.
“I prefer to be in Italy because it’s quiet, and the dog hates New York,” Ray says of Bella Boo Blue, the canine companion the couple adopted in 2020.
John Cusimano and Rachael Ray attends the 2025 North Shore Animal League America Celebration of Rescue at Tribeca 360 on June 12, 2025 in New York City. (.
Noam Galai/Getty
“Bella hates New York,” she says. “She’s a rescue from two foster homes in a kill shelter. You know our house burned down when we first adopted her. She had to be specially trained. She just can’t handle the sound and the lack of land, grass and woods of New York. She just can’t handle it, so I stay in Italy as much as possible. She’s there now, by the way.”
Ray, 57, has always held a personal connection to the country. She and Cusimano, 58, tied the knot in a Tuscan castle in 2005, renewing their vows there a decade later. And in 2021, she revealed that she’d bought a home in Tuscany.
“My family is from Italy, and I’ve always wanted to live in Italy,” Ray says. “It’s my life’s dream. And I’m in my 50s. I worked my whole life to live there. And we have a huge garden, orto, and we make our own wine. We press our own olive oil. We have a freshwater pool so my dog can drink water and swim at the same time. I just love the peace of it and the smell of the air.”
“You can just breathe,” she continues. “And everything is quiet. And you’re on a different time zone, so people don’t even try and find me. I’m six hours ahead, so people don’t even try and find me until much later in my day, so I’m more mentally prepared for it by then.”
Ray says she and Cusimano are planning a “very quiet” holiday season this year.
“It’s going to be much like our anniversary, very quiet, just us and Bella,” she says. “We’re coming home in December to have a quiet Christmas with our families, but a little before Christmas. On the actual Christmas Day, we’ll just be back in Italy.”
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