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Miami Herald
an hour ago
- Entertainment
- Miami Herald
Exploring Frederik Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids, MI
The Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park encompasses 158 acres of indoor and outdoor botanical and artistic experiences, just outside of Grand Rapids, Michigan. With outdoor trails and nature areas, the campus offers plenty of room to roam and explore. Built in 1995, Meijer Gardens has added to its original footprint, now offering both indoor and outdoor experiences year-round. Along with many permanent exhibits, you'll find an annual springtime butterfly exhibit as well as their wintertime holiday exhibition. Over the years, as a West Michigan resident, I've visited Meijer Gardens several times with my family. When my kids were small, they loved the Lena Meijer Children's Garden. Prepare to spend a lot of time wandering this area with your kids as they explore. My kids' undeniable favorite was always the Great Lakes Garden. Even in cooler weather, they loved splashing in the waterways of this raised water play exhibit. And my husband and I appreciated the surrounding benches that let us relax and watch when we needed a break. But really, who can resist water and boats? We were usually splashing along right with them. Regular storytelling and other events are held in the Children's Garden, including special offerings for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and more. The Meijer Gardens Sculpture Park features works by world-renowned artists such as Auguste Rodin, Dale Chihuly, and Edgar Degas. Many sculptures are spread throughout the entire campus, but most are collected in this specific area. Paved pathways allow you to wander as much as you want and explore at your own pace through fields, woods and waterways. On one visit to Meijer Gardens, a close friend and I took our teen daughters. With older kids, we could explore further and more in depth than when they were younger, and the girls loved posing for selfies and taking photos and videos to share on social media. There's a lot to see here, both manmade and in nature. In one portion of the sculpture park, waterfalls flow into a large koi pond where you can simply sit and relax at your leisure. You never know what to expect around the next bend – beautiful foliage or incredible works of art that you can walk right up to. This 24-foot bronze sculpture was brought to life by Nina Akamu in 1999, based on drawings by Leonardo da Vinci for a project that he never completed. There were only two created – one in Italy, and the other here at the Meijer Gardens. It's truly an epic sight to stand near, and you can even pose for pictures right underneath. This beautiful, tranquil area was added to the gardens in 2015 and was the highlight of our experience this summer. I think we explored just about every path in the Japanese Garden. The area is centered on a large pond, with waterfalls, boulders, bridges, trees, flowers, and of course art, everywhere. You can walk right down to the water's edge and follow winding stone pathways, or stay on the paved trail to explore. Nature pulls you in from every direction from the sounds of the wind to the smells of the trees and the feel of the path under your feet and the branches swaying as you pass by. Some of the paths closer to the water are made of stepping stones or other material that is difficult or impossible to traverse on wheels, so if you have a stroller or wheelchair in your group you'll want to stay on the higher paved pathways. A spiral path leads upward to the highest elevation in the garden for a beautiful view. There is also a gazebo right on the water and a Japanese tea house. Several areas are clearly meant for quiet reflection and scattered benches also offer places to relax and simply enjoy the environment. The only one of the many gardens that I have yet to explore is the Michigan's Farm Garden. I know that it offers a look into what life was like for farmers in our state during the 1930s. A variety of plants and vegetables can be found there as well as sculptures of farm animals and a 3/4 scale replica of an actual farmhouse. I can't wait until my next visit to learn more about and experience this garden. This area is one of my favorites at Meijer Gardens. The sight and sounds of the large, multi-tiered waterfall make a wonderful backdrop to the large pond filled with koi fish. There are Adirondack chairs located throughout, so you can sit down and relax and just take in the view. We've seen several wedding party photography sessions in this area too, as the waterfall makes a lovely backdrop. The Amphitheater Garden is the location for an annual outdoor summer concert series. My husband and I were fortunate enough to see the Indigo Girls here several years ago. The garden makes for a wonderful backdrop for live music and the amphitheater offers a variety of seating options. Our seats were near the rear, but we still had great views and loved the ambiance. The 2025 Fifth Third Bank Summer Concert series includes favorites like Wynonna Judd, Train and Cheap Trick. I was hoping we could make it to see Andy Grammer or Maren Morris, but both concerts are already sold out. SheBuysTravel Tip: Get tickets as soon as they're announced, especially for popular bands or singers! Along with beautiful gardens outdoors, there are several indoor spaces that aren't to be missed. My kids love the unique carnivorous plant house – the only dedicated display of carnivorous plants in the United States. The five-story Lena Meijer Tropical Conservatory displays more than 500 species of plants in a lush setting. Tropical birds also make this area their home, and every spring, you can visit the annual Butterflies Are Blooming exhibit here to see and walk among thousands of tropical butterflies. It's really an incredible experience to have butterflies land right on your head or shoulders as you walk along and explore. From the tropics to the desert… On our visit this past summer, the teens really enjoyed the succulents and cacti of the Earl and Donnalee Holton Arid Garden. We don't see many of these kinds of plants naturally here in the Midwest, so it's fun to explore! Other indoor gardens include the Victorian Garden Parlor and the Seasonal Display Greenhouse. From November 26, 2025 until January 4, 2026, you can experience the University of Michigan Health Christmas & Holiday Traditions exhibition. This annual exhibition is extremely popular, with different themes making it unique every year. The Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park is located on East Beltline Ave. NE in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The post Exploring Frederik Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids, MI appeared first on She Buys Travel. Copyright © 2025 SheBuysTravel · All Rights Reserved
Metro
10 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Metro
I've been in a long-distance relationship for six years — I don't want to commit
Welcome to How I Do It, the series in which we give you a seven-day sneak peek into the sex life of a stranger. This week we hear from Braxton*, 37, a high school teacher and freelance writer living in Phoenix, Arizona. He met his partner, 42-year-old Hannah*, in March 2019 when they both lived in Portland, and the pair have been on and off for the past six years. 'We have at times dated other people, and since I moved from Portland to Chicago in 2020 for graduate school, we see each other only a few times a year, usually around Thanksgiving and Christmas,' Braxton tells Metro. 'Because we're very different (in our habits, in our social and political outlooks), we aren't compatible enough to live together, and we don't consider ourselves boyfriend and girlfriend. 'I tried meeting women in Arizona through Tinder and Bumble, but I've only been physically intimate with Hannah the past two years.' The pair talk a lot on the phone and like to meet up when Hannah travels from her home in Nevada back to Portland for work, usually booking a hotel together. 'A big part of our relationship is laughing and being silly,' adds Braxton. 'When we aren't together, Hannah masturbates, but I haven't in four years, to focus on writing.' As you can imagine, there's some pent up sexual tension. So without further ado, here's how Braxton got on this week… Love reading juicy stories like this? Need some tips for how to spice things up in the bedroom? Sign up to The Hook-Up and we'll slide into your inbox every week with all the latest sex and dating stories from Metro. We can't wait for you to join us! The following sex diary is, as you might imagine, not safe for work . My day begins at a hotel in downtown Phoenix, where I've been covering a fan convention for a local independent weekly since Friday. I pack up, and take a rideshare thirty miles out into the suburbs, where I live. I go to the gym shortly after returning home, then work on my articles and pack until late evening. Hannah calls at about 9pm, having just checked into the Portland hotel where we're about spend the week together (she paid for this, since my teacher's salary means even paying for food during the trip will be more than I can afford). While I pack, we talk about our intentions to try having sex in the car, which we've never done. I ask which outfits she's bringing, and she's not sure since she's gained a lot of weight in the last two years, so a lot of her clothes don't fit anymore. When Hannah asks what I think about her weight gain, I say it's fine; I like squeezing her 'jelly' (her word) while we're having sex. But the more nuanced answer is she's less visually attractive now compared to a few years ago. However, there's something primal and satisfying about grabbing her large bottom, feeling her large, heavy breasts smashing into my face and her big thighs wrapped around me. On the call, Hannah gets aroused talking about it, and we laugh about how she has gotten wet enough that she has to change clothes after the call. I arrive in Portland at 9.30am and pick up the rental car. I've packed about three dozen absorbent incontinence pads, which we put down during sex because Hannah gets wet and squirts when aroused and orgasming. When we meet that evening, we kiss briefly in the parking lot and drive back to the hotel. She's wearing a denim dress, and I feel her bare leg up while driving. Back at the hotel, Hannah showers and comes into the room with a towel wrapped around. She suggests I mash her breasts (I say mash because she likes it vigorous and doesn't like the word fondle, which she thinks sounds like a molestation word) through the towel and we see how long we can hold off before having sex. We turn to face the mirror while I do just that. After a few minutes, Hannah puts some pads on the floor, and places one leg up on the bed as I reach around and finger her from behind. After she comes, she places more fresh pads on on the bed, lies on her back, and asks me to give it to her. She places a vibrating cock ring between us, though not over my penis because we find this setup awkward. I begin slowly and speed up when she asks me to finish inside her, which I do. We lie there for a few minutes before Hannah gets up to shower and I wipe myself down. After Hannah showers, we sit on the bed, and as we're eating dinner, she tells me how she lost her virginity at 36, on Easter Sunday. It's not the first time we've spoken about it and I know she waited because of her family's conservative values and her self-consciousness. Hannah, as is her habit, has set several morning alarms. We wake and cuddle. I'm tired and not getting much of an erection; Hannah says she's aroused, but isn't getting wet and either forgot to pack lube or has already misplaced it. She gets on top with her breasts in my face, then switch to me on top with her legs wrapped around my back and me feeling at her thighs. Afterwards, we realise we'd neglected to put a pad down, so when we get up, there's a wet spot on the sheets. Hannah asks me to drop her off close to her office, but not right at the door, because she doesn't want her colleagues to ask questions. During the day I buy some supplies at Target (including lube and nail polish remover) and meet my parents – who are on their way to the airport for a trip to Europe – for a late lunch. I pick Hannah up from work, then we drive to a nearby strip mall so she can look for clothes, before we get takeout and head back to the hotel. We were planning on driving to a secluded area after sunset have sex in the rental car, but Hannah goes out to call her friends, and I stay in the room to read. She's gone long enough that I drift off. She comes in late and very high, touching my penis roughly, in a way that isn't sexy. She talks manically and nonsensically for half an hour, so we call off having sex and go to sleep. We talk very little in the morning as I drop Hannah off at her office. I meet a friend at the park in the afternoon and don't leave to pick up Hannah until after 5pm, so she meets me at the hotel. We talk about the previous night, with me explaining how unsettling it is to be around her when she's high and that the way she touches me is unpleasant. She tears up and asks if we should get separate rooms or if I feel safe. I say that's unnecessary but that I don't feel sexy and don't want to have sex tonight. We wake at one of Hannah's earlier alarms and cuddle. She starts rubbing my chest, then asks me to take off my shorts so she can go lower. I remove the shorts, and she starts stroking my penis with lube. I'm soon erect, and she gets on top, asking if I like all that jelly — I say I do. After she comes, she gets on her back and wraps her legs around my back until I do too. I pick Hannah up after work and we return to the hotel to change before driving to a large independent bookstore downtown, stopping to pick up takeout on the way. We discuss trying to find a good car sex spot tonight, but I feel restless having not read or written much today. We go back to the hotel, where I read and Hannah putters around the room, before going to sleep without having sex, which is fine by me. Today is our last full day together. We have a morning bonk, doing the same positions as yesterday. After stopping at Starbucks and make some double entendre jokes about vegan sausages and venti drinks, I drop her off at her office. I see a friend before dropping Hannah at the spa with her pals, before going to meet another good friend of mine. I return to the hotel at about 10.30pm, and Hannah arrives shortly thereafter. We get into bed with the lights off and begin cuddling, then Hannah climbs on top. She comes, but I'm getting worn out and seem unable to climax from intercourse at this point in the week. I ask Hannah to use her hand, so she straddles me and strokes my penis as I squeeze her thighs until I orgasm. She lies down on me for a while before going to the bathroom to shower. We discuss how we want to have sex in the morning and decide to wake up early to do it at least once. We'd planned to wake early to bonk, and my alarm goes off at 5.30am, but we fall back to sleep and don't wake until 7am, missing the opportunity. More Trending Right before it's time to leave, I try on some shirts I bought recently so Hannah can comment on the fit and patterns. We drop off the rental car and race each other, Hannah on the moving sidewalks and escalators and me walking and taking the stairs. I wait with her at the bag check, then we kiss goodbye. I don't feel sad at this moment but that's because neither of us want this relationship to be more than it is. We enjoy sex with each other, and enjoy laughing and being silly together — but even after a few days together, things can get strained. I take the hotel shuttle back to the room and pack up. Hannah calls to say she missed her flight because she was in the bathroom with her earbuds in and missed the announcements. View More » I take a rideshare to meet my friend on the other side of town, not knowing when I'll see Hannah again. Do you have a story to share? Get in touch by emailing MetroLifestyleTeam@ MORE: I uncovered my husband's dirty secret while he was in a coma MORE: I thought I was confident in my body — then I got my first girlfriend MORE: I dumped ex for being boring in bed — but my new girlfriend's sex fantasy is too much
Scroll.in
11 hours ago
- Politics
- Scroll.in
A new book examines the rise of the ‘alt-right' in the US and its impact on the country's politics
In the weeks after Trump's election, an up-and-comer on the far right named Richard Spencer appeared on NBC, NPR, and CNN. Profiles of him appeared in the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. More were in the works. Showtime was putting out feelers for a documentary. Then, just before Thanksgiving, Spencer gave a speech at the annual conference of his think tank, the National Policy Institute. NPI was dedicated to the 'preservation of the heritage, identity, and future of European people in the US and elsewhere.' Spencer might have ended his speech declaring that America belonged to Europeans. But he knew his moment. America belonged to white people. 'America was, until this past generation, a white country designed for ourselves and our posterity. It is our creation; it is our inheritance, and it belongs to us.' This was met with a roar of approval from the hundred or so men assembled, culminating in scattered, stiff-armed Nazi salutes, like a mini-Nuremberg rally. He acknowledged these with a sloppy salute, not bothering to put down his drink. A clip of this went viral. I watched it while tracing the arc of Spencer's journey from obscurity to Charlottesville. And when I did, something about the world I had known abruptly shifted. Two 20th-century sources of national pride, providing decades of patriotic uplift, collapsed in a heap. That we had fought a 'Good War' against the horrors of Nazism and fascism. That our country's civil rights leaders had scored a moral triumph over racist Southerners and politics as usual. I knew these were national mythologies that historians did their best to complicate; by pointing out the Red Army's role in breaking the back of the Wehrmacht, for example, or the communist and nationalist forces of China doing the same to Japan. Still, it hadn't occurred to me that the American creed they embodied could be dispensed with altogether, replaced by something called the 'alt-right.' This was a term coined by Spencer in 2008, on the eve of Obama's election and the collapse of the US economy. The alt-right was a reaction to mainstream Republican politics, to the Christian right, libertarianism, paleo-conservatism, and the 'war on terror.' It was the online edge lord's response to what was once called political correctness or multiculturalism and is now called woke. It was old-fashioned white nationalism and white supremacy, with its grab bag of bigotries, wrapped in contrarian, countercultural, and hypermasculine cool. Like the hip alt-weeklies of yore, it had its own outlets where an ironic sense of style and subversive humour had been shaped and fashioned in the company of those with like-minded dispositions. Kicked off traditional social media, the figureheads of this new movement created a replacement 'alt-tech' with their own browsers, plug-ins, payment processors, web hosting, domain registrations, and VPN services. 'They are just building a copycat version of the internet playground,' data scientist Megan Squire has said, describing how the rise of these new platforms allowed men like Spencer to say the formerly unsayable in the name of edginess. In so doing, the 'alt-right' stole the glamour of the rebel, the revolutionary, the outlaw, the punk, and the perennial stance of épater les bourgeois from the boomer left. They used it to skewer the moral pretensions and ideological conformity of progressives, and the square, self-serving Republicans in Name Only, War on Terror–supporting dads. For many, it had a dark, naughty allure. I got it. With a knowing nod to Steve Bannon, with whom he keenly aspired to ally himself, Richard Spencer used the media attention to openly audition for the role of Trump's brain. He offered a political language for the incoming administration. No more foreign wars, a proud embrace of white heritage, the cultivation of white grievance, a flirty fascism, and a renunciation of 'globalism.' The latter was a newish euphemism, replacing cosmopolitan, for Jews. But it was also an abstraction that needed a face. The Jewish financier and funder of democracy initiatives George Soros provided it. Similarly, the woke liberal elite driving the conversation in media, business, and culture, were either Jews or in the pay of Jews, and thus hostile to a political order in which Christian white men claimed ascendancy. In place of the founders' notion of religious freedom, one that, on paper, protected not just Jews and Muslims, but also atheists and infidels, the alt- right proposed a Christian nation, if Christianity is understood to be an aspect of white heritage, stripped of long- standing ethical notions of right and wrong. Some foresaw an indivisible, sea-to-shining-sea, white nation; others, a confederacy of single-race, single-religion 'ethnostates.' Spencer even called himself a Christian Zionist; Israel, which quarantined and policed Christian and Muslim Palestinians in the townships of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, exemplified his idea of an ethnostate. The two movements had a shared history. In 1941, a right-wing Zionist proposed to a German diplomat the solution to the Jewish 'problem' lay in Jewish resettlement in Palestine. By then of course Nazi Germany had other plans. And when, in a debate with Spencer, a rabbi at Texas A&M Hillel insisted that the Torah taught 'radical inclusion and love,' Spencer pointed out that, on the contrary, blood and soil white nationalists shared not only the Zionists' vision of a single-race ethnostate but a virulent hostility to assimilation. The rabbi had no answer to that. Spencer was far happier debating who would or wouldn't be admitted to his Klan than getting to the nitty-gritty of how to make one hundred million Americans disappear. In a bold step beyond Mitt Romney's 'self-deportation,' Spencer called for 'a peaceful ethnic cleansing.' He was joking. There would be nothing peaceful about it. In 2012, Spencer had published a piece on the website titled 'Is Black Genocide Right?' 'Instead of asking how we can make reparations for slavery … we should instead be asking questions like 'Does human civilisation actually need the black race?' [and] 'What would be the best and easiest way to dispose of them?'' This went overboard and was taken down, like a product release before the market was ready. Spencer's cavalier pose over the prospect of genocide was calculated to throw a normal person off, stuck in 'he can't be serious' mode. One journalist wrote that Spencer's ideas didn't arise from deep conviction. It was an intellectual exercise, 'performed for his own amusement.' The ferocity of his vendettas argued otherwise. Spencer isn't amused. That's an affectation. He is enraged. Amid the media furor he'd stoked by summoning Adolf Hitler, Richard Spencer decided just then to appear on the podcast of Andrew Anglin, the balding, squirrelly-eyed editor of the neo-Nazi website the Daily Stormer. Why, I wondered, with the mainstream media at his feet? Because he was embarked on a vendetta. Spencer divided his time between a loft above a chocolate shop in Alexandria, Virginia, and the picturesque mountain ski resort of Whitefish, Montana (pop. 8000), where his Dallas-based parents had a vacation home. In the latest chapter of a long-running feud, the Whitefish city council had recently declared Spencer persona non grata. This was where Andrew Anglin came in. 'Never back down' was Spencer's personal credo. He had started with the local paper. His wife wrote a letter accusing the city council of orchestrating a Stalinist witch hunt against her husband. A social death sentence, perhaps, but a henchman's bullet at the back of the head? A midnight transport to the gulag? Overstating the harm, then playing the victim, was part of the white nationalist toolbox. Rand and Sherry Spencer, Richard's parents, wrote another letter. A downtown commercial property his mother had developed was being unfairly targeted by protesters. Her Realtor made the mild suggestion: sell it. For Spencer, this amounted to backing down. Time for the big guns. Andrew Anglin and Richard Spencer scarcely knew each other, but they understood each other. Learning of Spencer's feud with the Whitefish city council, Anglin activated his cyber mob. When Sherry Spencer's Jewish Realtor picked up her phone, she heard gunshots. Then slurs: 'You fucking wicked kike whore.' She was doxed. One of Anglin's boys made a meme featuring a photo of her 12- year-old son at the Auschwitz gate. The campaign spread to local rabbis, and then anyone with a vaguely Jewish name. Local businesses that exhibited 'Love Lives Here' window signs had their phone lines tied up. The governor met with the mayor, but there was little anyone could do. Though the practice of choreographed mega harassment has since become ubiquitous, the experience felt unprecedented to Whitefish residents hoping to spend their retirement in vigorous exercise. Two people involved in preparing Charlottesville for the Unite the Right rally told me the saga known as Gamergate was an important inflexion point in the development of the weapon Andrew Anglin unleashed on Whitefish after Richard Spencer's appearance on his podcast. Even gaming journalists struggled to describe what was underway when, between August and October 2014, over two million posts attached to the Gamergate hashtag went out on various social media, but largely on Twitter and Reddit. Excerpted with permission from Charlottesville: A Story of Rage and Resistance, Deborah Baker, Penguin Random House.
CBS News
11 hours ago
- CBS News
Fugitive arrested in Peru nearly 30 years after Thanksgiving Day murder in Miami
Nearly 30 years after a 22-year-old was gunned down at a Miami gas station on Thanksgiving Day, authorities have arrested a longtime fugitive in Peru who had been living under a stolen identity and working for the government as an air traffic controller. Nicole Modrono still remembers the last photo ever taken with her younger brother, 22-year-old Jimmy Schwarz, smiling together on her wedding day. Schwarz was killed on Thanksgiving night in 1996. "The man in my life was my brother," Modrono said. "The only man that I trusted anyway, because the role models that I had were no good." A life cut short Schwarz had stepped into the role of protector early in life, looking out for Modrono and their mother, Eileen Motte, in a home marked by domestic violence. "He always thought he needed to protect us and be with us and make sure that we were okay," Modrono recalled. "Because he felt like at 10 years old, he felt like he was the man of our family." The family's final memory of Schwarz is from Thanksgiving dinner that year. He left afterward to see friends and never came home. "I didn't even think once that something so tragic could happen on such a day," said Modrono. "But I didn't get up, and I didn't hug him and I didn't kiss him goodbye." According to investigators, Schwarz was at a Mobil gas station on the 3200 block of NW 79th Street when he got into an argument with a man who deputies say was a gang member. That man pulled out a gun and shot him. "My brother would've been a good man, and it hurts me that he didn't have a chance to do that," said Modrono. A break in the case For nearly three decades, Schwarz's family held onto fading hope that there would one day be an arrest. That hope was renewed last week. Authorities in Peru arrested 49-year-old Christian Miguel Orosco, the man Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office detectives say was identified by witnesses as Schwarz's killer. After the shooting, Orosco vanished and assumed a new identity: Eduardo Enrique Albarracín Trillo. "We do believe that that individual was a member of the military here in Peru," said Det. Jonathan Grossman. "After that person left or passed, Mr. Orosco used that identity and continued to use that identity up until the time he was arrested here." Detectives said Orosco worked for the Peruvian government for decades, most recently as an air traffic controller. "They're not very proud of the fact that this guy was able to dupe them the way he did," said Det. Juan Segovia, "and work for their government for almost 30 years." The arrest was made possible after a tipster contacted Peruvian authorities, who reached out to U.S. law enforcement. Orosco's identity was confirmed through fingerprint records. "Thank you for not forgetting" While Orosco's extradition could take up to a year, Schwarz's family says they are grateful someone never gave up on the case. "Thank you for caring, thank you for getting him," said Modrono. "I'm so grateful that someone still had my brother on their mind." Detectives say they are now working with Peruvian officials to learn how Orosco obtained the false identity and how he escaped the U.S. after the murder.
New York Post
14 hours ago
- Entertainment
- New York Post
Anne Burrell reflected on settling down with her husband after ‘living the rock star chef life' before her death
Anne Burrell shared insight into her life months before her tragic death on Tuesday. The celebrity chef was found unresponsive in the shower at her home in Brooklyn, New York before being pronounced dead at the scene at age 55, police said. Just three months prior, Burrell went on Tori Spelling's 'misSPELLING' podcast, where she dove into marrying her husband Stuart Claxton in 2021. The couple had met on the dating app Bumble in 2018. 8 Anne Burrell in 2017. Phil & Anne's Good Time Lounge / Facebook The 'Beverly Hills, 90210' star asked the 'Worst Cooks in America' host if she purposely waited to settle down. 'From when I was a kid, I don't know why, but I always was like, I am not getting married until I feel like I have something in life to share,' Burrell explained, 'until I have accomplished stuff.' 'I was living my best life!' she added about her 20s and 30s. 'I was like, living the rock star chef life. I was working a lot, and I had a great social life.' 8 Anne Burrell on Food Network. Instagram/@chefbeaumac Then, one day, Burrell's perspective shifted. 'I just started to feel like, all right, you're getting a little old to keep on doing this,' she recalled. Along with a husband, Burrell also gained a stepson Javier. 'Kids were never on my radar, really,' the cook confessed. 'I love being an aunt. I have nieces and nephews. So I'm like, [being a stepmom] is the perfect amount of parenting for me.' 8 Rachael Ray and Anne Burrell. rachaelray/Instagram Over the years, Burrell has opened up about her relationship, recently telling the Daily Mail in April, 'October will be four years. It seems like it's been four minutes. I don't know if it's a honeymoon [phase] but I feel like it's settled into married life days which I really enjoy.' In honor of Valentine's Day in 2022, the step-mom gushed over her other half, penning, 'You make me the happiest girl in the world!!! I love you to the moon and back my sweet!!!' As for meeting Mr. Right, Burrell once admitted Claxton also felt the instant spark between them. 8 Anne Burrell in 2017 at the Good Time Lounge. Anne Burrell 'I don't know if we had both thought of marriage, but we both were like, 'Oh, yeah, this is something,'' Burrell told People in 2020. ''This is really going to be real and this is going to turn into something.'' 'Once you get to be a woman of 50 years old, you don't really think that marriage is going to be on the plate for you,' she detailed. 'I was always really focused on my career and marriage was never a huge thing in my life that I was looking for. Then when I met Stuart, my opinion about all that changed.' Giving followers glimpses into their lives over the years, Burrell posted a month after their wedding, in a 2021 Thanksgiving post, 'A new home, a wedding, a stepson, great family, great friends, good health, great fans and just so much more!!! Lots of love to all!!!' 8 Anne Burrell at the Austin Food and Wine Festival. Scott Moore/Shutterstock Two years after their nuptials, the couple was still as in love as ever. 'I have to say, I love being married,' Burrell told People in 2023. 'We're together all the time because Stuart works from home. It's the being together all the time, but it's also the adventure together.' 'It's been wonderful, to say the least,' echoed Claxton. 'Anne and I hadn't lived together before we moved in and got married, so it's been a whole adventure, but very lovely at the same time.' The businessman has yet to address Burrell's death, however, her family confirmed the news in a statement to People on Tuesday. 8 Anne Burrell in 2015. Larry Marano/Shutterstock 'Anne was a beloved wife, sister, daughter, stepmother, and friend — her smile lit up every room she entered,' they shared. 'Anne's light radiated far beyond those she knew, touching millions across the world. Though she is no longer with us, her warmth, spirit, and boundless love remain eternal.' A cause of death has yet to be revealed. That same day, police officers shared that EMS 'responded and pronounced her deceased on scene,' sharing that the 911 call was originally for a reported cardiac arrest. 8 Anne Burrell at Grand Tasting Village in Miami, Florida. Gcaballero/Southbeachphoto/Shutterstock On Thursday, sources told The Post Burell's body was found next to dozens of pills. The author's death is still an ongoing investigation. Burrell is best known for hosting 'Worst Cooks in America' on Food Network for 27 seasons, from 2010 to 2024. After her passing, a representative from Food Network shared with The Post: 'Anne was a remarkable person and culinary talent — teaching, competing and always sharing the importance of food in her life and the joy that a delicious meal can bring. Our thoughts are with Anne's family, friends and fans during this time of tremendous loss.' 8 Anne Burrell and her husband Stuart Claxton. chefanneburrell/Instagam During her time at the Food Network, Burrell became close pals with Rachael Ray — who judged 'Worst Cooks' from 2015 to 2017 — and fellow chef Alex Guarnaschelli. Both ladies paid tribute to Burrell, with Ray, 56, writing in part, 'I'll miss her friendship deeply. Everyone whose life she touched will miss her. Sending love to Stuart and everyone who knew and loved Anne. We've lost someone truly special.' Guarnaschelli, 55, noted in her own post, 'Make this moment about her. She'd want you to go out, raise a glass, sing karaoke (including this Sia song–one of her favorite 'Worst Cooks' warm up songs) and be able to say, like she does, #ilovewhatido –so do it for her. In her honor.'
