The famous television chef says her relationship with then-boyfriend Andrew Cuomo ended after a cryptic comment he made privately to the star.
Their unbreakable bond finally shattered in the spring of 2019 inside their Westchester County home, Lee – who spent a decade by Cuomo’s side – described to one news outlet.
“I was in my kitchen and he said something, and the minute he said it, I knew what he’d just said,” she recalled to the glossy magazine. “And every window and door closed. And that was it … He knows what it is; I know what it is.”
While Lee, 58, didn’t say what Cuomo told her specifically about his hand and leg issues. She described Cuomo, 66, as having turned cold in their relationship. Even when she was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a double mastectomy in 2015, he left town for most of her birthday.
“I spent the day by myself,” she told US Weekly. “I was sitting on my lawn alone … I’m not someone who feels sorry for themselves, but that day was a bit much for me.”
She said: “He did come home after and we went for dinner but I was already upset.
Page Six reported that Lee and Cuomo were no longer living together in May 2019, although reps for both denied they had split up. But by September 2019, they confirmed that their romance was officially over.
In a recent interview with US Weekly, Lee stated that the last ten years have been “the hardest decade of my life.”
Lee, who had another uncle die of a terminal illness in 2023: “I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I will never get over the heartbreak loss of the last ten years. The grief has been endless but I will use it to fuel and feed me and make me wiser and stronger.”
After her well-publicized split from Cuomo, the “Semi-Homemade Cooking” host met Algerian actor Ben Youcef and they became engaged in 2021.
Lee admitted she felt like a “virgin” when it came to getting serious with Youcef.
After which, she mentioned: “I hadn’t been intimate in years and years. I literally felt like a virgin at 55 and I just didn’t want to get involved again,” she said in her interview.
As for the differences between Youcef and Cuomo, Lee said of her 45-year-old fiancé that he’s “very patient” and “very transparent.”
A rep for Cuomo has responded, — who resigned in August 2021 over sexual harassment claims per US Weekly — stating “There are always two sides to every story. He, he said, made himself available on Lee’s birthday in 2015 and was not around when the mysterious comment was allegedly made in 2019.