Obnoxious cook and talk show host Rachel Ray didn’t just claim to be a size six in passing, she did it in an article that takes up two pages in this week’s In Touch.

The story is an interview with Ray that focuses on how she “maintains” her weight. It’s titled “How a great cook stays a size six.” Ray gives some reasonable answers to questions about if she’s lost weight and if she exercises regularly, saying she doesn’t focus on her looks and that she does some light exercises at home but doesn’t go to the gym. Then she claims to have been a size six “for several years,” due to “stretch fabrics.” She doesn’t look like a size six to me, but I guess that can vary based on the store and style:

You look amazing - have you lost weight since last season?
I don’t know or care - I’m happy and I feel good. My looks are never the focus of my work.

Does working with food all day make it harder to maintain your weight?
No, it’s easy. When you cook, you control the salt, fat and quality of your food.

What’s your secret to staying thin without depriving yourself?
Everything in moderation. And I’m not thin, but thanks!

How do you avoid eating if you feel tempted?
I don’t avoid it. I eat.

Have you always been the same size?
No, but for several years I have been a 6. Within a size 6, you can play with about 20 pounds thanks to stretch fabrics. I don’t get on the scale, I have enough to worry about! I eat well - lots of vegetables and whole grains and protein. When a size 6 gets too tight, I just eat less and move more.

When you chose to work out, what kinds of exercises do you prefer?
I do sit-ups, Jane Fonda butt lifts and push-ups each day, that’s it. I have a gym card that spends most of its time mocking me from my wallet. With my schedule, it’s very hard for me to maintain a consistent gym routine.

[From InTouch, print edition, November 5, 2007]

I am not making fun of Rachel Ray’s weight. I don’t really like her as a person but she looks good. She just does a disservice to normal-sized women by claiming to be a size six when she’s at least an eight, as if it’s something to be ashamed of and to blatantly fib about. It’s possible she does have some clothing that’s a size six and that it fits her due to “stretch fabrics,” but is everything she owns a size six? Unless her people change the tags like Oprah’s staff is rumored to do, it’s doubtful. I haven’t lived in the states in a while and could be out of touch with the sizing though. What do you guys think?

Rachel Ray is shown in the header on 4/24/07 at Food Bank for New York City’s Annual Dinner, thanks to Splash News. She is shown below posing with her wax figure at Madame Tussauds on 2/21/07 thanks to PRPhotos.

It appears Rachael Ray’s marriage is pretty much over. The giant-headed star (and I mean that in the kindest, literal sense; not as an insult implying that she has a big ego) and her husband have been tabloid fodder since last November, when the National Enquirer reported that her husband, lawyer/”rock star” John Cusimano paid a lady named Jeaninne Walz a good deal of money ($500 a session) to spit on him, rub her feet in his face, and other stuff too nasty to write. According to Page Six this has been going on since 2000, and has continued throughout the course of his marriage to Ray, according to Celebrity Mound.

Cusimano is the frontman for the very appropriately named band The Cringe. He and Ray have been married for two years, and don’t have any children. Though all reps are denying the breakup, it seems to just be that heap of garbage most press reps and lawyers are paid to say.

“Rumors are also circulating that Rachael ‘has been flirting’ with Colby Donaldson, the ex-”Survivor” cast member who joined the “Rachael Ray” show in February, on and off the set. But Ray’s rep, Charlie Dougiello, told us, “Rachael and John are happier than ever and have been in the Hamptons since Tuesday enjoying the holiday week with friends. Rachael’s mom, Elsa, is upstate at the family cabin. There is no truth to reports they are about to get divorced.”

[From Page Six]

It stinks that someone can just come along and destroy your marriage by saying something like this. But you have to think that if it really is leading to a divorce, there’s at least a chance that there’s some truth to the rumor. I swear to God, just the mention of feet in any sexual context would make me end a marriage/friendship/work/pretty-much-anything.

Perky cooking mistress Rachel Ray had a few too many at dinner with friends and was overheard talking smack about Oprah, Angelina Jolie, and Brad Pitt. TMZ asks if she’s “racial,” but I think they mean “racist” because you wouldn’t call a personal “racial,” but maybe they weren’t trying to sound so severe or whatever. Apparently she said that Oprah was wearing “slave drag” in a picture that she prominently displays of her as as a slave in Toni Morrison’s post civil war-era movie, Beloved, and said that Oprah “has problems being black.”

That doesn’t sound racist to me, it just sounds like drunk smack-talking. A lot of people have levied that same criticism against Oprah, so it’s not like Ray came up with it.

Ray also revealed that she’s team Aniston, and is said to have called Brad Pitt a “sissy boy” and Angelina Jolie a “”skanky, backdoor cunt.”

Of course her people deny this ever happened, and her companions at dinner say it’s not true, either.

I believe it. I mean, I don’t know much about this chick apart from the 2 minutes I sat and watched her cooking show before I got annoyed and flipped the channel. Vera at I’m Not Obsessed went to a taping of her new show, though, and said she got snippy with cameraman and swore on set. She said she’s not as chipper as you think.

Ray’s husband is rumored to have a weird foot fetish, and a woman recently sold her story to the Enquirer claiming that he paid her to spit on him and rub her feet on his chest.

Header image of Rachel Ray as a perky food chipmunk who will scratch you if you get too close from Gallery of the Absurd.