Rishia Haas: Andrew Zimmern's Ex-Wife of Fifteen Years

Rishia Haas entered the public record through one of television's longest-running food careers. Her former husband, chef and Bizarre Foods host Andrew Zimmern, built a public career on curiosity and honesty. And the record ends with the most honest line he ever gave the press. In an email to The New York Times he wrote that he was not there for his wife. He wrote that he was not there for his son. And that his wife gave him a thousand chances to make it right.

Before that quote, the rishia haas file runs quiet and dated. She married Zimmern on December 26, 2002, raised their son Noah. And lived inside a Minnesota family life that the press barely touched for sixteen years. The divorce arrived in 2018, and the chapter after the split pulls away from the spotlight completely, toward work and beekeeping.

The Minnesota Early Life

The rishia haas origin chapters stay inside Minnesota. Profiles describe a household shaped by steady work and Christian faith. The father is listed as a businessman, and the mother as managing the home life. And the rishia haas childhood record prints almost nothing else.

That privacy has held through two decades of fame next door. The press has never published a full school or workplace history. So the reliable opening records are the ones the marriage created. They start in the late 1990s, when the two Minnesota lives first overlapped.

The Marriage Record of 2002

Rishia Haas married Andrew Zimmern on December 26, 2002. The date matters, because the rishia haas marriage began the same year Zimmern's own comeback chapter started. That came after the chef had rebuilt his life through recovery and was heading back into food television.

The couple married on Boxing Day, in a small family setting per profiles. This means the early marriage years ran parallel with the hardest career stretch of his life. The recovery held clean, and the Bizarre Foods pilot door opened. And the Travel Channel eventually turned him into a flagship host, all while the family kept its base in Minnesota.

Noah and the Minnesota Years

The family record includes one child. Son Noah was born during the marriage. And profiles keep his record to a first name and birth window. The standard line adds that the family stayed based in Minnesota while the television career ran on the road.

Profiles of the era describe the arrangement plainly: a career that crossed continents for filming, and a household that stayed home. The rishia haas file adds a small professional identity of its own, listing administrative work inside the food and health field. And later beekeeping. It the press found out about only after the divorce.

The NYT Quote and the 2018 Divorce

The rishia haas file turns in 2018. Zimmern's own account of the marriage's end came in an email to The New York Times. And the record now carries it in full: not there for the wife, not there for the son. And a wife who gave a thousand chances to make it right.

Profiles treat that quote as the emotional center of the divorce record. The marriage is counted at sixteen years by most profiles, about fifteen by some counts. And the searches that reach this far usually arrive at the same place: an apology on record. And no public fight from her side at any point.

The Administrative Work and the Beekeeping Side

The work record deserves its own entry, because it is the part of her file that is entirely her own. Profiles list her in administrative roles tied to health and food organizations. It is the kind of career that organizes other people's creative business while keeping a low public surface of its own. Co-workers from that period describe steady management work rather than any television-side job.

The beekeeping line came later, and the press learned it through church and community side stories rather than any announcement. Twin Cities profiles have pointed to backyard honey operations across Minnesota as a growing movement. And the Haas name sits inside that local record. The two careers also explain the divorce chapter's silence: someone working audits and hives has no press-facing career to interrupt.

Life in Minnesota has stayed constant through every chapter of the file. Zimmern's interviews describe returning to the state between shoots. And profiles of the family years place the household in the Twin Cities area through the marriage and after it.

Life After the Divorce

The post-2018 record belongs to quiet work. She stayed in Minnesota, kept her professional life private. And per profiles expanded the beekeeping business side. It sits nicely against the local food values the Twin Cities press covers each season.

Zimmern spoke around the same themes in later interviews, crediting recovery work and family repair as ongoing projects rather than finished chapters. He has also kept Minnesota inside his food advocacy work. That runs from the state fair stages to the school lunch conversations that his foundations support. The file adds no rebuttals, no filings with public statements. And no interviews. It makes the final record read a certain way. One side apologized on the record, and the other side simply left the stage.

The apology record also explains why the searches lasted. Once the NYT email printed, every profile site rebuilt the marriage around it. And the phrase took on a life of its own. What the searches rarely carry is the quiet part. She built a second decade of work and family life without ever answering any of it publicly.

The record also shows why the apology became the file's center of gravity. Most divorce records carry only a date and a filing. Meanwhile, this one carries the ex-husband's own sentence-level account, which every later profile quotes. The imbalance turned one quiet ending into a lasting public document.

Frequently asked questions

Who is Rishia Haas?

She is the former wife of chef and Bizarre Foods host Andrew Zimmern, married to him from 2002 through 2018.

How old is Rishia Haas?

Profiles print no confirmed birth year, so the age line stays unpublished in reliable records.

Do Rishia Haas and Andrew Zimmern have children?

One. Son Noah appears by first name in the family records.

Why did Rishia Haas and Andrew Zimmern divorce?

The record carries his own words. In an email to The New York Times he said he was not there for his wife or his son. And that his wife gave him a thousand chances to make it right.

What does Rishia Haas do now?

Profiles list administrative work and beekeeping, and the record keeps her based in Minnesota after the divorce.

How long were Rishia Haas and Andrew Zimmern married?

About sixteen years per most profiles, counted from the December 2002 wedding to the 2018 divorce.

Conclusion

The rishia haas file is one of the quietest ex-wife records of television fame. A Minnesota childhood, a Boxing Day wedding in 2002, and sixteen years beside a chef who was usually somewhere else. A son named Noah closed the family chapter. And a divorce that ended with an on-record apology rather than a fight. After that, beekeeping and privacy. The record reads 4/5, missing only her confirmed birth details.

Related reading: The ex-wife record runs across other fame files as well. It continues in Lisa Thorner's file, which covers a marriage that ended at court-file level.

The fame-beside-recovery chapter also holds Joely Fisher's file, another talent family with a long public record.