The “Barefoot Contessa” alum intended to be complimentary about her new look.

Ina Garten accidentally ‘horrified’ a French hairdresser with this NSFW phrase about her husband

The “Barefoot Contessa” alum intended to be complimentary about her new look.

By Daysia Tolentino

Daysia Tolentino

Daysia Tolentino is a writer at *. *She has written for * *since 2025. Her work has appeared in NBC News, Vulture, GQ, and InStyle.

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September 16, 2026 1:48 p.m. ET

Ina Garten. Credit:

Theo Wargo/Getty

- Ina Garten revealed she blurted out an NSFW phrase in French while trying to compliment a hairdresser in France.

- Garten said the stylist was “horrified” by her words.

- The chef said she knew she said “something wrong, but I have no idea what.”

While Ina Garten may be adept at making French cuisine, she’s less skilled in the language.

The *Barefoot Contessa *alum revealed that a joke got lost in translation while she was at a hair appointment in France. In an effort to compliment her stylist, Garten accidentally offended him with a lewd statement.

“I went to a hairdresser once in France and he said in French, ‘Would you like your hair straight or curly?’” she recalled during Wednesday’s episode of her podcast, *Happy Hour with Ina Garten**.* “I thought, ‘Oh, what the hell, it’s New Year’s Eve, how about curly?’ So he did my hair curly and I wanted to say to him, and I did it in French, I wanted to say, ‘When my husband sees me, he’s gonna say, “Kiss me quick before my wife gets here.’”

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However, she noted that, in French, you might “get it a little wrong” and turn out to be “just totally wrong.”

“So I just said what I thought I said, ‘Baise-moi vite en avant que ma femme n’arrive,’” she explained. “And the hairdresser was just horrified. And that night, I was like, I said something wrong, but I have no idea what. That night, I went out with friends and asked, ‘What did I say?’ And they said, he said, ‘F--- me quick before my wife gets here.’”

Garten has been married to her husband Jeffrey E. Garten since 1968. While the two had this funny mix-up in France, things weren’t always smooth-sailing in their relationship.

Ina Garten attends ‘Jennifer Wallace In Conversation With Ina Garten’ at 92NY on Jan. 27, 2026 in New York City.

Theo Wargo/Getty

In fact, the 78-year-old chef revealed in her 2024 memoir, *Be Ready When the Luck Happens*, that the two nearly separated in the 1970s after Garten left her job as a nuclear budget analyst at the White House. She had decided to go all-in on Barefoot Contessa, which, at the time, was a small specialty food shop in the Hamptons.

“When I bought Barefoot Contessa, I shattered our traditional roles — took a baseball bat to them and left them in pieces,” Garten wrote. “While I was still cooking, cleaning, shopping, managing at the store, I was doing it as a businesswoman, not a wife. My responsibilities made it impossible for me to even think about anything else.”

The Food Network star added that her husband became a “distraction” and that she “didn’t pay enough attention to him.”

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“I thought about it a lot, and at my lowest point, I wondered if the only answer would be to get a divorce,” Garten recalls. “I loved Jeffrey and didn’t want to shock — ­or hurt — ­him, so I’d start by suggesting we pause for a separation.”

Ultimately, the two attended therapy and reconciled, sticking together in the years since.

Check out the full episode of *Happy Hour With Ina Garten* above.

Original Article on Source

Source: “EW Podcasts”