Tragic Details About Duff Goldman

Becoming a celebrity chef on television was a tough prospect in years past, but with the rise in popularity of the Food Network and reality television over the past two decades, it's no longer the most successful restauranteurs finding fame on television. Now, sheer talent — and an outsized personality — can often be all that's necessary to build a superstar career as a TV chef. Duff Goldman, the man behind the long-running baking show "Ace of Cakes," has those in spades, and he's managed to parlay them into one of the most successful careers in the world of celebrity cooking.

Though his TV hosting and judging duties typically see him working as a baker, Goldman can do it all. However, that doesn't mean his life has been all sunshine. Even at his best, Goldman has dealt with real struggles, and his past includes dark moments that he still finds tough to look back on. Still, it seems he's always frank about his past, perhaps seeking to help others by opening up about how he has handled life's lowest moments. From nearly dying in a brutal street collision to the most painful moments of his youth, these are the tragic details that might surprise you about the life of chef Duff Goldman.

Duff Goldman graduated from the University of Maryland with multiple degrees — but nothing related to his future occupation as a celebrity baker. Instead, he earned degrees in history and philosophy before he enrolled in the Culinary Institute of America. In 2002, he founded Charm City Cakes, and in 2006, he was given his own TV show on the Food Network about the day-to-day challenges in his bakery — "Ace of Cakes." However, fame and fortune aren't always what they're cracked up to be, and for Goldman, they actually created new and unexpected problems.

For starters, the perception customers had of him and his bakery began to change now that he was at the center of a reality TV show. And with his success came imitators like "Cake Boss," "Fabulous Cakes," and "Cupcake Wars." Customers began seeing cakes as a part of pop culture, and they didn't just want a special treat but an elaborate project like on their favorite episodes. "Cake decorating TV was getting pretty saturated and Charm City Cakes was getting painted with the same brush that other TV bakeries were," he told Huffington Post. "We were getting pigeon-holed into doing one kind of cake, the crazy ones with lights and motors and stuff, which I love, they're great, but, we do a lot of wedding cakes and people just forgot that."

Whipping up cakes and cooking treats in the kitchen aren't Duff Goldman's only passions. In addition to his love of history and philosophy, he's also an avid motorcyclist, a hobby that got its start when he designed and baked a cake in the shape of a Ducati motorcycle. As part of the project, the dealership that commissioned the confection gave Goldman an actual Ducati motorcycle. With a high-performance bike in his garage, the TV chef took it upon himself to learn how to ride, and he's since bought his own choppers, too. 

"I love motorcycles," Goldman told Us Weekly in 2014. "They're part of my soul." However, his riding life hasn't been without its pitfalls, and in 2012, Goldman suffered a brutal crash on his bike that cost him a few toes. "It didn't scare me," he said defiantly. "It just made me make the choice to say, 'I'm doing something that is very dangerous, but it's something I love.'" According to Goldman, his family and friends all made him swear to give up the hobby after the accident, but he just couldn't stay away, and it led to a newfound appreciation for life. "There was about an eight-month period where I didn't ride bikes," he says. "And every time I would see a bike go by... and I was like, 'I can't do it anymore.'" Ultimately, Goldman says he came to terms with the fact that life is precious and decided that the joy of riding was worth the risk. 

Though Duff Goldman hasn't gone into great detail about his violent bike crash, it's sadly not the only motor vehicle accident he's been involved in. In 2024, the Food Network star did go into specifics about a recent road incident that almost ended his life. It happened on the streets of Los Angeles and regrettably involved a dangerous drunk driver. "On my way home from the airport I was thinking about what kind of cake I was going to make for my daughters birthday," Goldman began innocently in a post on his Instagram page.

"Next thing I knew I bleeding and surrounded by airbags. A drunk driver had swerved into my lane on a windy country road." Goldman then revealed that, while his life wasn't at serious risk due to the crash, he did suffer a horrific injury to his right hand that would require extensive treatment and rehabilitation. "It's gonna be a long road to recovery, and for someone like me who makes a living with my hands you can imagine that this is no joke." He also called out the other driver and condemned those who get behind the wheel while under the influence. "There's no excuse for driving drunk. None." 

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Duff Goldman became famous not only because of his uncanny ability to craft the most amazing of cakes but also thanks to his TV-friendly persona. Known for his big smile and effortless enthusiasm, Goldman is also recognized for his large frame, and his weight is something that he's found challenging for years. "I've struggled with weight since college," Goldman said in an interview with Bicycling.com in 2018, while he was still judging "Ace of Cakes" on the Food Network. "I sometimes have to try 24 desserts a day."

Efforts to shed the excess pounds eluded Goldman, and he's acknowledged that as part of his long history of charity work, he once unsuccessfully tried training for California Chefs Cycle charity in 2015, giving up after just two weeks. But thanks to a friend's persistence, Goldman gave it another try. "The following year, I got a Giant Defy [brand road bike] and started training more seriously." It started with short trips to the beach from his West Los Angeles home, but soon he began challenging himself. "It got to be fun to see how far I could go. When I rode the 50 miles to Palos Verdes and back, it was an incredible feeling." 

Within a few years, Goldman had shed almost 30 pounds, which he attributed to simple exercise and eating better. "I'll never not love cake. I f***ing love cake. But with riding, everything pushes everything else. Eating cleaner and feeling better makes me ride more because it feels good."

Emotional trauma sustained during childhood has the potential to affect a person in ways they don't expect as they get older. For many, that includes the divorce of their parents — a split that can create rifts in a family and leave them struggling for answers. That was the case for Duff Goldman, whose father and mother, who played a role in his first childhood experience as a chef, called off their marriage when he was young. Their divorce was not an amicable one.

"My parents had a really nasty divorce," Goldman said during a revealing interview with People Magazine in 2023 while promoting his new series, "The Elf on the Shelf: Sweet Showdown." More than just troubling him as a kid, though, the breakup of his parent's marriage also instilled in Goldman a disdain for the very practice of holy matrimony. "I was like, 'Cool. I don't ever want any of that, so I'm not getting married.' I was just like, 'I'm not into it," he added. Though an understandable reaction for a child, it turned out to be a stance that stuck with him for many years — until he met someone special.

In 2016, Goldman bumped into Johnna Colbry online, and the two fell in love. They married three years later in 2019, and in 2020, they announced the pending arrival of their first child, who was born a year later (and who has an adorable nickname for him today, referring to him as "cookie dada"). 

A career in the kitchen isn't typically one for someone seeking fame and notoriety and can be full of mortifying mishaps. Whether that's ruining an elaborate dish by misjudging an ingredient or slipping and falling in a puddle of grease, the back of the house isn't a place for prying eyes, as even the most experienced chefs have probably been involved in a few blunders over the years. In a US Weekly interview, Duff Goldman talked about what had to be his most cringe-inducing incident in the kitchen that happened when he was working for another chef earlier in his career.

"My most embarrassing moment was when I got pantsed in an open kitchen with no underwear on," the celebrity baker said in 2023. "The whole dining room saw it — and by 'it,' you know what I mean." Unfortunately, Goldman wasn't even in a position to fix his malfunctioning wardrobe because he was too busy baking. "The chef was yelling at me to pull my pants up and I told him that I didn't pull them down, so he made the cook that did it pull my pants up."

It can be easy to imagine that a celebrity and TV personality like Duff Goldman, who had his own hit series and is seen often basking in the proverbial glow of his fame, lives a simple, pleasure-filled life devoid of real problems. Nevertheless, even the rich and famous have their personal issues, and for Food Network great Duff Goldman, it's a struggle with self-doubt that has plagued him all his life — even (and perhaps especially) after he hit it big on "Ace of Cakes."

"Your insecurities, your anxieties, your fears, all the things that make you do all the dumb things you do, everybody has them," Goldman explained on Imposters with Alex Lieberman. He revealed that he frequently psyches himself up before big public events by reminding himself that those insecurities are indeed universal, and they help us survive. "Anxiety kept us from getting killed by saber tooth tigers." In the same interview, he talked about how he manages that self-doubt, telling Lieberman that his job as a chef makes his life even more demanding but that lifting helps him relax. "I do a lot of different things," Goldman said. "But, like, I love to lift heavy things ... Putting on music and lifting is great.

Not every celebrity hits the big time in a straight line. Like most roads to success, the path from obscurity to superstardom can be fraught with ups and downs, and that was certainly true for Duff Goldman. In fact, Goldman nearly lost it all before he catapulted to fame on the Food Network. Early in his career, he'd taken a prestigious gig at French Laundry, a three-Michelin-star restaurant in Los Angeles, and he equated getting hired there to getting admitted to Harvard. Sadly, it wasn't a good experience because it stifled his creativity. 

"One thing I learned is that it's that kind of environment is not a very good fit for me," he said on the Sporkful podcast. "I mean, you can probably imagine that would be a square peg in a round hole, right?" Following a crisis of faith about his career, Goldman found himself at a crossroads and walked away, but it wasn't an easy decision because it left him with little. Eventually, he got a job making bread in a hotel kitchen, and while it wasn't the prestigious position he'd once had, he'd learned a lot. There, he rediscovered his love of baking, but after a move back home to Baltimore, he decided to swap careers, briefly pursuing a life as a musician. 

Duff Goldman's brief stint as a rocker wasn't without its successes either, proving that he is more than just a talented chef. He even had the opportunity to play with some well-known rock groups, including the legendary Maryland outfit Clutch, for whom he later baked a celebratory cake on "Ace of Cakes." Unfortunately, life on the road made it harder for Goldman to pursue his first love — baking. So, he put down the bass and got a job as a personal chef, but it didn't last long, and when he left, he was flat-broke with nowhere to go.

"When I quit my job as a personal chef and I woke up the next day, uh, I had no paycheck," Goldman recounted on Sporkful. "I had enough money in my bank account that I could pay my bills for about two months if I didn't sell a single cake." With his back against the wall, Goldman knew he didn't have many options, so got right to work to keep himself afloat. "I was like all right, I got two months to start making money. You just don't have a choice. Like, I don't have a choice. I have to succeed." Thankfully, Goldman was able to make ends meet by making cakes, and before long, had started his own bakery, Charm City Cakes. And the rest is history.

In addition to self-doubt and anxiety, Duff Goldman also harbors deep fears of failure. "I'm still terrified of stuff," he told Sporkful host Dan Pashman, expressing worry that at any moment he could lose everything and be back at square one. However, he's most afraid that future failures will be his fault, and that making mistakes could be his undoing. "The thing is, is that you never stopped being terrified because you're still doing stupid stuff, but you learn how to deal with it."

Figuring out how to manage that fear and that stress, though, has helped him remain grounded. "You know, I think you learn how to operate within — or just in spite of being afraid or being scared, of being nervous, being anxious about something." Rather than live under the iron fist of fear, Goldman chose to believe that the best way through a struggle is to tackle it head-on, no matter the consequences — even if that consequence is starting over from scratch. "There's always, like, scary stuff and I'm like, dude, if this doesn't go right, I might be working at Chili's in a year. You know? Like it still happens." Whether that mentality is the reason or not, Goldman has so far avoided a disastrous career crash.

In 2017, Duff Goldman wrote a scathing op-ed for People, criticizing the infamous incident in which a Colorado baker refused to make a cake for a gay wedding, leading to widespread backlash and later, a Colorado court decision in the couple's favor (which was then partially reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court). He staunchly supported the customers who were suing the bakery at the time, saying unequivocally that chefs "get to choose what we sell, but we don't get to choose who decides to stop in and purchase our goods." That tolerant attitude, though, may stem from his own tragic past when he had to deal with the horrors of antisemitism as a young Jewish person growing up in Baltimore.

In a discussion with The Cornell Daily Sun, Goldman spoke about how he endured antisemitism in school, and that the problem only got worse with his growing fame and the rise of social media. He told the college paper that, in his school days, he'd often get into fights with bigoted bullies but that he has different — and more peaceful — ways of dealing with the problem today. "When you approach it with a little [bit] of humor and gently teach people ... sometimes people listen," he said.