TLDR: Stephanie March was Bobby Flay’s third wife, marrying the celebrity chef in 2005 after dating for four years. Their decade-long marriage ended in a bitter, public divorce in 2015 amid allegations that Flay had affairs with multiple women, including his assistant Elyse Tirrell and actress January Jones.
The divorce battle involved fights over their prenup, credit cards being cut off, and a plane flying a “CHEATER” banner over Flay’s Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony.
Bobby Flay’s third marriage was supposed to be the charm. After two failed marriages to fellow chefs and TV hosts, the Food Network star finally found love with someone outside the culinary world.
Stephanie March seemed like the perfect match. She was a successful actress known for her role on Law & Order: SVU, beautiful, accomplished, and supportive of his career.
But their fairy tale romance ended in one of the messiest celebrity divorces of 2015. What went wrong between Bobby Flay and Stephanie March involves alleged cheating scandals, prenup battles, a racehorse, and a plane flying overhead with a banner calling him a cheater.
The Blind Date That Changed Everything
Stephanie March and Bobby Flay met in 2000 on what would be March’s first and only blind date. The setup came courtesy of actress Mariska Hargitay, March’s Law & Order: SVU co-star, who thought the two would hit it off.
Flay went all out, taking March to Nobu, one of New York’s most exclusive and hard-to-book restaurants. The grand gesture worked.
“I know it’s a cliché, but I remember thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, this is the rest of my life,'” March told CNN in 2008.
Unlike his previous two marriages, Bobby took his time with Stephanie. They dated for three years before he popped the question, and he did it in spectacular fashion at the Rockefeller Center ice skating rink in New York.
The couple married on February 20, 2005, in a lavish ceremony at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in New York. The wedding was featured in In Style Weddings magazine, cementing their status as a power couple.
The Perfect Wife Who Supported His Empire
For the first several years of their marriage, Stephanie March appeared to be the ideal partner for Bobby Flay. She enthusiastically supported his growing restaurant empire and television career, often accompanying him to industry events and red carpets.
March wasn’t just arm candy. According to her later divorce filings, she played an active role in helping Flay expand his business during their marriage.
For their fourth wedding anniversary, Flay gifted March a racehorse named “Dad’s Crazy.” It seemed like a romantic, over-the-top gesture that showed how much he valued their relationship.
But cracks were already beginning to show beneath the surface.
The Hospital No-Show and Missed Anniversary
In March 2014, Stephanie March’s appendix burst, requiring emergency surgery. It was a serious medical crisis that could have been life-threatening.
Bobby Flay didn’t rush to her bedside. According to TMZ, he didn’t show up at the hospital until the following day.
When he finally did arrive, he left before March was even discharged, claiming he had work commitments that couldn’t wait. For March, this was apparently the breaking point that made her realize her marriage was in serious trouble.
Things got even worse in February 2015 when the couple’s 10th wedding anniversary rolled around. Instead of celebrating a decade of marriage with his wife, Flay chose to attend a wine festival in Florida.
Adding insult to injury, his assistants accompanied him on the trip, including Elyse Tirrell, who would soon be at the center of explosive cheating allegations.
“Stephanie told me, ‘I wasn’t asking for much. I would have stayed if he had given me one date night a week and tulips on our anniversary,'” March’s friend, actress Maia Madison, told Page Six.
The Alleged Three-Year Affair
In late 2014, shortly after Thanksgiving, Stephanie March allegedly discovered that Bobby Flay had been having an affair with Elyse Tirrell. Tirrell was a 28-year-old woman who had worked as a hostess at Flay’s Bar Americain in Midtown before becoming his assistant.
According to court documents and reports from friends, the affair had been going on for three years.
“[March] came into my house and was sobbing uncontrollably,” Maia Madison recounted to Page Six. “She said, ‘I can’t believe the last ten years of my life have been a lie.'”
Madison added a heartbreaking detail: “Elyse had always seemed so nervous when Stephanie came into the restaurant, and Stephanie, not knowing what was happening, went out of her way to compliment her and try to make her feel more comfortable.”
Tirrell had even been to the couple’s home, both when March was there and when she wasn’t. Madison called her “about to become the Monica Lewinsky of the food world.”
Bobby Flay’s representatives neither confirmed nor denied the affair. Instead, they issued a statement suggesting the allegations were leaked specifically to gain leverage in divorce negotiations and renegotiate their prenuptial agreement.
The January Jones Car Crash Connection
The Elyse Tirrell affair wasn’t the only alleged infidelity. In her divorce filings, Stephanie March accused Bobby Flay of cheating with actress January Jones in early 2010.
According to court papers, March claimed they “had sex many times and in different places,” including at The London Hotel in Los Angeles.
The alleged affair came to light in the strangest way possible: a car accident. In June 2010, January Jones crashed her Range Rover into three parked cars in Los Angeles.
Instead of calling the police or a tow truck, Jones called Bobby Flay. He arrived at the crash scene before anyone else, raising eyebrows about why a celebrity chef would be the first person she’d contact in an emergency.
Flay later claimed he’d only met Jones once before and that she had his number because she wanted him to connect her with an interior designer for her kitchen remodel. Neither Flay nor Jones ever publicly addressed the affair allegations.
The Brutal Prenup Battle
When Bobby Flay filed for divorce in March 2015, things got ugly fast. The couple had signed a prenuptial agreement in 2005 before their wedding, and it was never amended during their 10-year marriage.
Under the prenup’s terms, March would receive $5,000 per month in alimony and a $1 million buyout on their homes. Given that Flay’s net worth was estimated at $20 million and growing, March’s lawyers argued these terms were unconscionable.
March contended she had played an integral role in building Flay’s restaurant empire and deserved a much larger share. She pointed to the allegations of infidelity as potential grounds for invalidating the prenup entirely.
According to TMZ, March’s attorney sent an outraged letter to Flay’s counsel expressing shock at the “measly $5,000 support check” Flay had sent.
Things escalated when Flay cut off March’s credit cards, which she had been using for household and daily expenses, including food and pet supplies. March’s lawyers accused him of financial bullying.
There were also bizarre disputes over specific assets. Remember that racehorse Flay had gifted March for their fourth anniversary? According to March, “Dad’s Crazy” had won $130,000 in racing earnings and was worth another $90,000 at auction.
March claimed Flay had pocketed all those earnings despite the horse being her anniversary gift. Flay denied pilfering the equestrian winnings.
The “CHEATER” Plane Banner
In June 2015, two months after filing for divorce, Bobby Flay became the first celebrity chef to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It should have been one of the proudest moments of his career.
Instead, as Flay gave his acceptance speech, a plane flew overhead pulling a banner that read simply: “CHEATER.”
The stunt made headlines across the country. Everyone assumed Stephanie March was behind it, but her attorney immediately issued a denial.
“Stephanie is absolutely not behind [this],” her lawyer Deborah Lans told Us Weekly.
To this day, it’s unclear who paid for the plane banner. Some reports suggested it was simply a prankster who saw an opportunity for a viral moment.
But the timing was perfect, and the message was clear: Bobby Flay’s public humiliation was now complete.
The Settlement and Aftermath
In July 2015, Bobby Flay and Stephanie March finally reached a divorce settlement. The specific terms were never made public, but reports suggested it was a compromise.
March got more than the original $5,000 monthly alimony stipulated in the prenup, but far less than she had fought for. Flay kept both of their homes—the Manhattan residence where March had been living with her sick mother, and their house in the Hamptons.
Sources told Page Six that Flay agreed to pay more “not due to Bobby’s desire to do the right thing, but his fear of being exposed [as an alleged cheater]” in a public trial.
The couple issued a joint statement: “We have come to an amicable divorce settlement. We look forward to putting this difficult time behind us and we ask that you respect our privacy as we move forward.”
But there was nothing amicable about losing both homes. March had to find a new place to live while dealing with the emotional fallout of the divorce.
Moving On: Stephanie’s Life After Bobby
In the months following her divorce, Stephanie March showed remarkable resilience. While the tabloids continued to dissect the details of her failed marriage, she focused on rebuilding her life.
“It’s been quite a year,” she told The Potato in October 2015, with characteristic understatement.
In her first extensive comments about the divorce, March told Extra in November 2015: “Business is good, I have great friends, I love my new place, it’s really a good time in my life.”
She acknowledged the difficulty of seeing her private life splashed across tabloid headlines. “I am by no means the only person to ever go through this and I’m very cognitive of that. I have a wonderful support network of really good friends and really good family so I don’t spend a lot of time feeling sorry for myself about it.”
March even kept her sense of humor. “I thought I would have to learn to cook, ’cause I’m not really a very good cook, and I thought, ‘I’m gonna have to pick up a few tricks,’ but as it turns out I go out a lot, so looks like I don’t have to.”
In September 2017, March found happiness again when she married tech investor Dan Benton at their home in New York. Unlike her celebrity marriage to Flay, this wedding was private and low-key.
“She was happy being single, but this is the next chapter,” a source told E! News about her relationship with Benton.
Where Are They Now?
Today, Stephanie March appears to have found the stable, loving relationship that eluded her with Bobby Flay. She’s married to Dan Benton and has largely stayed out of the public eye, focusing on her business ventures and personal happiness.
Bobby Flay, meanwhile, has continued his pattern of relationships but has sworn off marriage entirely. After dating actress Heléne Yorke from 2016 to 2019 and writer Christina Pérez from 2021 to 2024, he’s now in a relationship with fellow chef Brooke Williamson.
But as he told Kristin Cavallari’s podcast in 2024, marriage is “off the table.” After three divorces, including the brutal public battle with Stephanie March, he’s done with wedding vows.
For Stephanie March, the messy divorce from Bobby Flay is now firmly in her rearview mirror. She survived the cheating allegations, the prenup battle, the credit cards being cut off, and losing both homes.
And unlike Debra Ponzek and Kate Connelly before her, March was the one who forced Flay to finally confront his pattern of failed relationships. Her willingness to fight publicly, even if it got messy, may have been exactly what it took for Bobby Flay to admit that marriage just isn’t for him.
