Hacker Takes Over Ina Garten's Facebook Account and Posts Olive Garden Recipe

Most of the time, if you see the words “Ina Garten” and “hack” in the same sentence, it’s because she’s given us some brilliant kitchen tip for easily slicing corn kernels off the cob, mixing the perfect Cosmopolitan, or ensuring that reheated bread tastes like it was just baked.

But a recent Ina Garten hack had little to do with cooking and more to do with someone gaining access to her Facebook page. As first reported by the Daily Mail, whoever took over the page changed her profile picture to a stock image of pie slices and shared several food and drink recipes, including another Facebook page’s recipe for — gasp! — an dupe for Olive Garden pasta.

Some of Garten’s two million-plus followers quickly realized something was up. “How you know Ina Garten's Facebook account has been hacked: instead of being her Hamptons-dwelling, Cosmo-sipping, ‘good olive oil’ using self, she's suddenly become your Jell-o salad-making great-aunt from Iowa who's always posting Olive Garden copycat recipes,” one Twitter user joked. “Once I saw that profile pic changed to pie I'm like [damn], they got her,” chef and cookbook author Noel Cunningham commented on Garten’s (recovered) Facebook page.

Yes, Garten was able to get her page back. All of the unapproved (and very un-Barefoot Contessa) recipes were deleted and the page’s profile photo is now a professional pic of a beaming Garten standing behind a vase of roses and a beautifully roasted chicken.

“Thank you to everyone who alerted me that my Facebook page was hacked, and to Meta for helping us get our page back,” Garten wrote. “I will continue to post my favorite recipes here and read all of your wonderful comments!”

But if these hackers are now targeting the accounts of high-profile chefs, perhaps Guy Fieri should look into changing his password.