I’m still wondering if it’s all an early April Fool’s joke. Or perhaps some kind of elaborate AI-created fake. But Guy Fieri’s new look ‘seems’ to be legit. And it’s not at all the look you’d expect from the ‘Fiery Guy’ who used to bounce off the walls and scream…
I had a flash of Happy Days nostalgia when I first beheld a photo of the ‘new’ Guy Fieri. I thought I was looking at an old pic of actor Tom Bosley, who played Richie Cunningham’s dad on the legendary retro sitcom…
What? Why? – Who?
Fieri unveiled the new look as part of his 58th birthday celebration this past Friday, January 22. And it surprised everybody.
“New Year. New Guy. New Look,” he captioned the home-shot video clip, giving viewers a good, long look at his new persona.
“Hey there! After so many years of celebrating my birthday as Guy, I figured this year I’d celebrate it as just a guy. Happy birthday to me!” he quips in the clip.
Is this for real?
Many beholders have proclaimed the ‘new Guy’ pix as showing the real him. The eyes. The eyebrows. The bags under the eyes. The shape of his face. The chin. The ears – without any errings. The trade-mark arroyos either side of his unmistakable nose. All genuine Fieri.
Guy’s elder son, Hunter, came back in the Fieri-site comments with: “Dad… When did you start selling insurance? 😂”
InStyle described the vibe as ‘suburban dad core’. IS columnist Meg Walters observed: “He looks like the kind of guy who says things like, ‘Swell’, and, ‘Golly’.”
Mixed reviews…
“Wow, I barely recognized him. Bro looks like my car salesman,” said fellow celeb chef Joshua Weissman.
“It’s like Tucker Carlson and John Goodman had a baby,” someone else quipped.
One more-skeptical commenter opined, “This has to be a teaser for a Super Bowl ad…”
But there were also dissenters…
Actor Christy Carlson Romano simply wrote: “I don’t like this.”
Another user was more specific: “This makes me uncomfortable in a way I didn’t know to be possible.”
And a third mourned… “I love you Mr. Fieri, but please don’t use AI. It makes nature sad 😢”
What is it really about?
So, the new look is real. But is it permanent?
All indications are, it is. It would be hard to fake the ‘new’ Guy photographically unless he found a really, really striking look-alike. Or has a twin brother we don’t know about. I don’t even think AI could pull off the transformation as successfully as a trip to the hair salon did.
One wonders how the new look will effect his on-screen personalty. It would be hard to reconcile his new appearance with his old bombastic, ‘bouncing off the walls’ character.
My take
I think Guy is reacting to his midlife crisis. After tumbling down some stairs last fall during the filming of a new cooking game show series, he was confined to a wheelchair for weeks.
He’s getting around pretty well now, if his video is any indication. But I think he’s decided it’s time to slow down, in all respects.
And that’s not a bad thing. In fact, the Guy in the birthday video looks at least 20 younger than the ‘old’ Guy! Not to mention more approachable. More authentic.
But I suspect he put a lot of thought into his decision, before actually taking the plunge. And I sus-pect one of the conclusions he came to was, it was crazy for someone his age, with grown children, to maintain his old pseudo-biker image…
~ Maggie J.