Status Anxiety | 17 January 2009

How a reality show gave me back my title as least popular person in America

When I was asked if I wanted to appear as a judge on Top Chef, an American reality programme, I said ‘yes’ without giving it much thought. The producers assured me it was ‘the highest-rated food reality show on cable’, but that sounded a bit like describing Nuns On the Run as the best cross-dressing comedy about nuns made in the Eighties. Aren’t reality shows ten-a-penny on American television? No doubt my involvement in the programme would go completely unnoticed, just as my appearance on countless British food reality shows has done. (Did anyone see Eating With The Enemy? I didn’t think so.)

I got an inkling of just how wrong I was when I received an email from Euan Rellie, my ex-New York flatmate, the day after my first episode was broadcast last week. Top Chef is a cross between The Apprentice and Masterchef and the episode had depicted me judging an assortment of dishes from nine different ‘cheftestants’ — and deciding, along with my fellow judges, to eliminate two of them. ‘Congratulations,’ wrote Euan. ‘After ten minutes on Top Chef, you are once again the least popular person in the United States. Hamas is getting more favourable NY press coverage than you are.’ I did a quick trawl of the internet and discovered he was right. Far from being just another reality show, Top Chef is a national institution in America, as popular with the chattering classes as Strictly Come Dancing is over here. It has been nominated for three Emmies — the Oscars of American television — and attracts a passionate following among foodies.

‘It is unclear why the producers chose Mr Young whose main claim to fame is f***ing over Graydon Carter, being an EPIC FAIL and who maintains an entirely deserved reputation as a self-serving whiny drunk pissant,’ wrote Joshua David Stein on Gawker, a New York gossip site.