Sandra Lee and her fiancé, Ben Youcef, have called it quits.
Jennifer Abel, publicist for Lee, confirms to Us Weekly that the chef has ended her engagement with Youcef after five years together.
Lee and Youcef started dating in 2021.
“Meeting Ben was incredible. It was the perfect intersection of timing and chemistry,” Lee exclusively told Us in a 2024 cover story, revealing Youcef asked her to take a walk together after meeting by chance at a restaurant. “I hadn’t been intimate in years and years.”
Lee further revealed that she wanted to take her romance with Youcef slowly — even waiting to share a kiss until they had been together for two months.
“I literally felt like a virgin at 55, and I just didn’t want to get involved again,” she told Us. “He finally kissed me, and I stood there stone-still. He kept his lips on mine, and my mind just went blank. I still didn’t kiss him back.”
She added at the time, “He waited and persisted, and here we are. My chemistry with Ben is something that I’ve never had before. It’s mental, it’s emotional, and it’s a connection that I can’t even describe. When he kisses me, my mind goes blank. It’s the only time I can meditate, which is why I love kissing him.”
Youcef was Lee’s first relationship after splitting from former New York governor Andrew Cuomo. Lee and Cuomo, 67, were together for a decade before they called it quits in 2019.
“I was in my kitchen and he said something, and the minute he said it, I knew what he’d just said,” Lee recalled to Us of her decision to break up with Cuomo. “Every window and door closed. And that was it. He knows what it is; I know what it is.”
Neither Lee nor Cuomo have gone into specifics of what went wrong, though the politician stressed to Us in a statement that he remains “supportive” of Lee.
“Governor Cuomo has always been totally supportive of Sandra through good times and bad. She partnered with him, spent time with [his] girls, and handled functions as first lady very well,” a rep for Cuomo told Us last year. “Sandra and the Governor had separate and busy lives and grew apart over time. Breakups are always difficult and there are always two sides of the story, but the Governor chooses to focus on the positive and he wishes her nothing but success and happiness in the years ahead.”
While Lee did not elaborate on her past with Cuomo in her Us cover story, she said Youcef was a very different partner.
“When you live separate lives, you are not creating a life together,” the celebrity chef noted to Us. “Ben is very patient, and he’s very transparent. He checks in all the time, and shares everything with me. He loves helping people without agenda or motive. He truly tries to be a better human every day.”
Regardless of the highs and lows of her love life, Lee is moving forward on her own terms.
“We all go through pain and hurt,” she added at the time. “You’re either at the beginning, the middle or the end of hurt and pain. It’s life. It’s a cycle. And then you get these amazing runs of happiness that make it all worth it. My life was a nightmare that slowly turned into a dream.”
