Celebrity chef Guy Fieri says Jeff Bezos didn’t donate to his COVID-19 restaurant worker relief fund

• Guy Fieri was featured in a profile published by The Hollywood Reporter on Friday.
• Fieri said that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos did not donate to his COVID-19 relief fund for food workers.
• Bezos, the richest person in the world, donated $100 million to Feeding America in April 2020.
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Celebrity chef Guy Fieri said that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos didn't contribute to his COVID-19 emergency relief fund for food workers.

In an interview published by The Hollywood Reporter's Mikey O'Connell, Fieri recalled how many restaurants and mom-and-pop eateries struggled when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the US last year. Restaurants shuttered as coronavirus cases rose across the country. By April, eight million food workers were out of a job.

According to Fieri, some of those small businesses had an estimated 10-day period before their money completely ran out – meaning food industry workers and their families faced financial stress.

"I don't get pissed or lose my s—," Fieri, 53, told THR. "But I was pissed."

That's when Fieri decided to launch an emergency relief fund for out-of-work food workers. Fieri told THR that he asked his business manager to share the contact info for CEOs of major corporations.

"[Fieri] drafted personal emails to power brokers like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, soliciting donations for an emergency relief fund that would ultimately award more than 43,000 grants - of $500 each - to out-of-work line cooks, servers, and other restaurant professionals," the article said.

So far, Fieri's efforts helped raise more than $25 million for unemployed food workers. Companies like PepsiCo, Uber Eats, and Procter & Gamble all gave considerable sums to Fieri's fund, but not everyone donated.

"I'm not into shaming people and telling who didn't donate, that's not my style," Fieri told THR. "Jeff, by the way, didn't help us."

Insider contacted representatives for Jeff Bezos and Amazon but did not hear back in time for publication.

According to Forbes, Bezos, who's worth $201.4 billion, became the richest person in the world by nearly $20 million last August. He was among other billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk to see their net worth increase by half a trillion dollars during the pandemic.

Although Bezos did not donate to Fieri's fund, the Big Tech founder gave $100 million to food banks that faced shortages during the pandemic. Feeding America thanked Bezos in an April 2020 press release, saying, "This donation, the largest single gift in our history, will enable us to provide more food to millions of our neighbors facing hardship during this crisis."

Separately, Amazon pledged $7 million to support vulnerable Washington DC and Seattle communities through non-profit organizations. The company also worked with public health researchers to deliver and collect coronavirus at-home testing kits.

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