Bobby Flay recalls being rejected by pal Kristin Cavallari after sliding into DMs

Bobby Flay has a lot of good to say about long-time friend Kristin Cavallari, while recalling being rejected when he asked her out for dinner.

The 59-year-old Food Network star recently joined Cavallari on her Let’s Be Honest podcast to chat about his latest cookbook, Chapter One. 

However, the conversation quickly moved beyond recipes as Flay opened up about his dating life, revealing he once reached out to Cavallari in her DMs.

Although Cavallari, 37, wasn’t interested at the time, some listeners encouraged her to reconsider. Flay, however, was quick to set the record straight, playfully adding that there’s no romantic future between them.

“I mean, there wasn’t really much there,” he shared with People on Thursday.

“Kristin and I have been friends for a long time, and so I called her and I was like, ‘I want to do your podcast. I think it’ll be fun.’”

Flay gushed that joining her show introduced him to a fresh audience.

Unlike his usual interviews that are “really just basically based on food,” Flay noted that Cavallari’s podcast connected him with a different demographic of listeners, expanding his reach beyond the typical food-focused crowd.

“I love her energy, and I also really respect her as a businesswoman,” he shared of the Laguna Beach star.

“She’s fun. She’s a baller, she’s a mom, she’s got three kids,” he continued. “She runs her jewellery business, she runs her podcast business, she runs her whole Kristin Cavallari life and she does it incredibly well.”

Flay further recalled a lighthearted story, admitting he once asked Cavallari out to dinner, clarifying that the invitation was meant as a friendly meet-up after she had politely turned him down.

“I DMed you and I said to you … ‘I’m going to be in Nashville for one night, can I take you to dinner?’” Flay recalled. “And you literally said something to me like, ‘I’m already dating somebody.’”

Although Cavallari tried to explain that she was “burnt out on dating” at the time, Flay backed his story.

“No, you said, ‘I’ve already started seeing somebody’! And I said, ‘I just want to go to dinner with you,’” he replied.

Cavallari described the mix-up as a “foot-in-mouth” moment, agreeing that she shouldn’t have assumed Flay had romantic intentions with his dinner invitation.

“I think the ‘take you to dinner’ thing is more where it was like, ‘Oh, that seems like a date,’” she said.