The Unbelievable Drama Surrounding Kimmie From Hell's Kitchen

For those who don't recall Kimmie Willis, she was on "Hell's Kitchen" the year Christina Wilson won, 2012. The chef would eventually create one of the strangest stories ever to be attached to the show. The chef was Kimmie Willis. She came from Memphis, Tennessee, and worked as a personal chef, per Reality TV Revisited. She was removed in Episode 14 of that season for not being able to cook southern food – according to Gordon Ramsay, who hails from Scotland and grew up in England where boiled meat is the norm (says The Guardian). This is ironic because on the show she seemingly couldn't go five minutes without bringing up her Southern roots.

For those not familiar with Kimmie's antics, some YouTube creator was kind enough to put together some of her greatest hits on "Hell's Kitchen." She displayed a big personality but also tended to abrade the other contestants. She had conflicts and was presented as someone who preferred to deep-fry nearly everything in sight instead of accepting input from anyone else.

In a 2013 interview with Mike Wilkerson of Blastzone Mike's Live Show, Kimmie said she got married and opened a catering company. However, it's not her cooking or her career that caused a scandal. Instead, her tale is far more unusual and involves alleged internet scams and possible theft of thousands of dollars from the people who donated to her sick child.

Though her career after "Hell's Kitchen," didn't explode, Kimmie Willis is suspected of turning her marginal celebrity into a useful internet hustle. Allegedly, Kimmie and a partner managed to use a TikTok influencer to help her scam users of the platform out of more than $7,000. According to this Reddit thread, she used the TikTok creator Ryker to swindle Ryker's followers into donating money to Kimmie. Supposedly, the money was for an organ transplant for her son.

Chef Kimmie's Twitter page is replete with posts asking for help for her son AJ. According to one of her Facebook posts, AJ has "VACTERL syndrome" along with "end stage renal disease." In addition to asking TikTok for help, she created an organ transplant page for those wishing to donate. After the donations were collected, there were claims of malfeasance on the part of Kimmie. The Reddit thread says that AJ's medical needs were being "covered by Medicaid."

The situation prompted Ryker to post a TikTok video alleging that she and her followers were mistreated by Kimmie. "We didn't think we would ever be scammed," says Ryker. She explains that she and her mod don't have the money: "You need to go after Kimmie for the money." As yet, no money is known to have been recovered.