GOSSIP & RUMORS: Who is Ina Garten’s husband? Everything to know about Jeffrey

Ina Garten was only 15 years old when she first met her now-husband, Jeffrey Garten. The couple dated for five years before tying the knot in 1968 in her parents’ Connecticut backyard when she was 20 and he was 22.

Early on, Ina, 76, and Jeffrey, 77, decided not to have kids.

“I really appreciate that other people do — and we will always have friends that have children that we are close to — but it was a choice I made very early,” the Food Network star said on the “Katie Couric Podcast” in 2017.

“I really felt, I feel, that I would have never been able to have the life I’ve had,” Ina continued. “So, it’s a choice, and that was the choice I made.”

In 2023, the television personality shared more details on her decision.

When asked if she thought having children would hinder her career, the renowned chef responded, “Much harder” before explaining further.

“I don’t think that’s why I made the decision,” she clarified to BBC News’ Katty Kay. “I’m actually writing a memoir now, and I’m kind of looking back at my childhood. It was nothing I wanted to re-create.”

She added: “I’m always looking forward. To look back and realize a lot of my decisions were based on my childhood, I think that was really the motivating factor, and Jeffrey and I were just so happy together.”

In the five decades since, Ina has gone on to write 13 cookbooks, release a product line, host the long-running show “Barefoot Contessa” on Food Network, and host a new series called “Be My Guest with Ina Garten.” 

Her husband has also been successful in his career. He joined the US Army Special Forces before working for several presidential administrations and on Wall Street.

Jeffrey has maintained a lower profile despite his wife being in the public eye for decades. Still, he has never wavered in showing his support, including the occasional cameo on Ina’s show.

The now Yale professor even made headlines after word spread that he accidentally sent a love text meant for Ina to the wrong person.

“My dear friend, who’s also my publicist, he sent a text to her, and he meant it for me, and he said, ‘You’re gonna be delicious tonight,’ and it went to her,” Ina revealed on “The Drew Barrymore Show in 2022. “She was like, ‘Whoa.’ She sent back, ‘I don’t think this was meant for me.’”

So, who is Ina Garten’s husband? Here’s everything to know about Jeffrey Garten and his 56-year marriage to the author.

Jeff and Ina met through a mutual friend

Jeffrey first laid eyes on Ina during her visit to Dartmouth College in 1963 to visit her brother.

According to Food Network Magazine, Jeffrey was gazing out the library window and he said to his roommate, “Look at that girl, isn’t she beautiful?” His roommate knew her brother and made the connection.

“He saw me on the street and then sent me a letter with a photograph of himself in it,” the “Barefoot Contessa” star told People in 2018. “I just remember running through the house and going, ‘Mom, Mom, you’ve got to see this picture of this guy. He’s so cute!’ ”

Six months later, the pair had their first date.

Their first date didn’t go as planned 

Ina shared on her 2022 episode of “The Drew Barrymore” that her first date with Jeffrey was “a disaster.”

“Why he ever wanted to see me again, I have no idea,” Ina confessed. “I was in high school, and he was at Dartmouth, and he called, and we had a mutual friend, and he’d seen me walking around the campus at Dartmouth, and he asked the friend if he could call me.”

“So, he called, and I just knew he was a friend of the friend, and I thought, ‘Well, he’s a Dartmouth guy, so he probably wants to, like, go to a bar or something.’ I had never been to a bar and so I said, ‘Oh, let’s just go to this bar, Hilltop,’ like I’d been there many times.”

Ina played it cool until she got to the door and realized the bouncers wanted her identification. 

“We parked there and walked in and there are two big guys at the door and I said, ‘What was that?’ I didn’t understand what they were saying,” she shared. “Finally, Jeffrey said, ‘They want your ID,’ and I said to him, ‘What’s that?’ “

“I had no idea that I needed a fake ID to get into a bar when I was 16,” she said. “We turned around and left and I said so many years later I said to him, ‘What did you think? Why would you want to take me out again?’”

And his sweet reply further solidifies their solid bond.

“‘I thought you needed taking care of,’” Ina recounted. “Which is so sweet. And he was so right.”

Jeffrey invested and believed in Ina’s career  

In 1970, Ina worked as a nuclear policy analyst in the White House alongside her husband, who encouraged her early in their marriage to forge her own career path.

“I was watching TV at 11 o’clock in the morning and Jeffrey said, ‘You need to figure out what you want to do with your life,’ ” she told People in 2016. “I was shocked. It was 1969 and I was married. That was what girls did.”

But she knew deep down she didn’t find her work fulfilling: “I came to him one night, and I said, ‘It’s just not me. I want to do something more fun than this.’ “

“From the time we got married, I really was interested in cooking, but I had never cooked at all,” admitted the cook. “He encouraged it so much by just being so appreciative when I cooked, and that was really the beginning of my career.”

Ina saw a business for sale in the New York Times in Westhampton Beach, New York, and decided to buy it, keep the name of the business (Barefoot Contessa) the same, and create a specialty food store.

“It was just unbelievable that he was willing to invest every penny we had in something I’d never done before and in a town we’d never been to,” she gushed. “He’s just done that all the way.”

He is currently the Dean Emeritus at the Yale School of Management

These days, the businessman serves as the Dean Emeritus at the Yale School of Management and teaches courses on the global economy.

According to his faculty page, before joining the team at Yale, Jeffrey worked for multiple White House administrations, was a managing director on Wall Street, and served in the US Army Special Forces.

He holds a B.A. from Dartmouth College and a Ph.D. from the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University.

He wrote Ina letters every day while he was deployed in the army

Before Jeffrey worked at the White House or at a university, he was in the army, where he wrote his other half’s letters day in and day out.

From 1968 to 1972, Jeffrey served as a lieutenant in the 82nd Airborne Division, a captain in the U.S. Army Special Forces, and an advisor to the Royal Thai Army.

He deployed shortly after their nuptials but continued to keep Ina at the forefront of his mind. 

“I wrote to Ina every single day,” he shared with People in 2018. “During the whole year, I was only able to call her once.”

And to this day, she has kept every single letter he wrote. 

She told the outlet, “I was recently reading through them, and I came across one that said, ‘I’d love to take you to Paris, and we won’t have enough money for a hotel, but maybe we’ll go camping.’” 

They ended up doing just that. And now the pair even owns a place in Paris where they spend their anniversary each year.

Jeffrey is always up for trying out whatever Ina whips up in the kitchen

After five decades together, Jeffrey still remains Ina’s favorite taste tester in the kitchen.

“I think the best way you can express love by cooking for someone is figure out what they like, not what you like, what they like, and make it for them,” she told Today in February 2018. “And they’ll feel really good.”

And out of the hundreds of recipes Ina has created, Jeffrey wasn’t fond of one dish in particular.

“There was one (dish) I made very early on (in our marriage) that was like ground beef and corn that was just dreadful,” she shared. “But we couldn’t afford to make another meal, so we ate it and said it was delicious.”

Like his wife, Jeffrey is also a published author

Jeffrey has written six books on the subjects of global economics and politics.

His writings have been published in the Harvard Business Review, BusinessWeek, Foreign Affairs, BusinessWeek, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The New York Times, Newsweek and Foreign Policy.

Jeffrey has the secret to a long-standing marriage 

The duo marked their 55th wedding anniversary in December 2023 by answering questions about one another in an Instagram video. When asked about his secret to a long marriage, Jeffrey answered, “Love Ina to death.”

“When Jeffrey and I were first married, I asked him, what do you want for your life? He replied I want to be a good husband. I’d say you nailed that! Happy anniversary, Jeffrey,” Ina captioned the video.

Ina and Jeffrey separated early on in their marriage

Although the couple is stronger than ever, Ina detailed their one-time separation and near-divorce in the 1970s in her upcoming memoir, “Be Ready When the Luck Happens.”

Ina was working overtime running the specialty food store that would later shoot her to stardom, the Barefoot ­Contessa, but Jeffrey, 77, “expected a wife that would make dinner,” she told People in September 2024.

“When I bought Barefoot Contessa, I shattered our traditional roles —­ took a baseball bat to them and left them in pieces,” Ina continued in her memoir. “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. There was no expectation about who got home from work first and what they should do, because I never got home from work!”

At the time, Ina felt it pertinent to figure out what she needed on her own.

“When Jeffrey came on weekends, he was a distraction,” she continued. “I didn’t pay enough attention to him. I just wanted everyone to leave me alone so I could concentrate on the store. Jeffrey was fully formed and living the life he wanted to live. I wasn’t, and I wouldn’t be able to figure out who I was or what I wanted unless I was on my own. I needed that freedom.”

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

“It was the hardest thing I ever did. I told him that I needed to be on my own. I didn’t say whether it was for now … or forever. In true Jeffrey form, he said, ‘If you feel like you need to be on your own, you need to do it.’ He packed his bag and went home to Washington with no plan to come back. I buried my emotions and threw myself into my work.”

Ina then told Jeffrey that he’d need to see a therapist if he wanted to reconcile. She had hoped a professional would help him see their dynamic as equal partners.

“One hour, that’s all Jeffrey needed,” she recalled. “He went once for an hour and totally got it.”

“Jeffrey’s willingness to see the therapist was as significant as anything that might happen during their session,” Ina explained. “He was that determined to convince me he was serious about making our marriage work.”

“Six weeks passed. We talked, we listened, and more importantly, we heard each other when we aired our concerns. Moving forward, we could be equals who took care of each other. It wouldn’t happen overnight, but if we worked toward the same goal, we could change things together. Thank God I did,” she wrote. “I think how crazy that was and how dangerous it was, but we wouldn’t have the relationship we have now if I hadn’t done it.”

“It changed him,” Ina added, “but it also changed me too.”