Guy Fieri is facing legal trouble as a former Food Network reality series winner has filed a lawsuit against the celebrity chef over a failed restaurant that launched off the back of the show.
According to The Daily Mail, Kevin Cooper, who won the short-lived Food Network series Guy’s Chance of a Lifetime in February 2022, is suing Fieri for not providing the monetary support he was allegedly promised for winning the show.
The series, which aired for only one season, saw aspiring chefs competing against one another in a series of culinary contests for the chance to run their own Chicken Guy establishment, one of Fieri’s brands.
Cooper, a chef from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, won the show. As part of his winnings, he was allegedly supposed to receive a guaranteed $100,000 salary for the first year in addition to a waived franchise fee and $10,000 set aside for any legal expenses. He also claimed he was promised assistance to build out the space for the restaurant and operational costs that exceeded the first year’s revenue.
While Cooper’s Chicken Guy franchise opened at the King of Prussia Mall outside Philadelphia in February 2024, it closed just a year later in late February 2025. A reason for the closure hasn’t been provided, but Philly Mag reported Cooper filed a lawsuit against Fieri’s company, Chicken Guy LLC and Earl Enterprises LLC.
Per The Daily Mail, the lawsuit claims Cooper never received the guaranteed $100,000 salary, despite requesting it on multiple occasions. He also alleges that he was never given the promised operational expenses, which exceeded the store’s revenue.
Cooper, who also appeared on Food Network’s Cooks v Cons and Guy’s Grocery Games, is seeking the $100,000 salary and expenses that he claims were promised to him for winning the reality competition series.
On Sunday (June 29), Cooper shared a video on Instagram, where he acknowledged he had been “quiet” on social media as of late. While he didn’t address the lawsuit directly, the Philly-based chef said, “There were some moments where I didn’t even want to speak my truth, because the version of the God that was handed down by my ancestors wasn’t the version that I came to know in my quiet space.”
He added, “So for a long time I held back, because I didn’t want to become just another black man pushing the blame because I was done dirty… I ain’t mad, I ain’t angry, and I ain’t even trying to make anybody look bad, man. I’m just here to let y’all know that I am completely free and now I’ve got something to say, so y’all stay tuned. Peace.”