Hell's Kitchen: What Happened to Season 1 Winner Michael Wray & Tatou
With Fox's Hell's Kitchen season 19 underway, many fans are looking back at previous winners to see what happened to those who survived Gordon Ramsay's kitchen. Michael Wray from Hell's Kitchen Season 1 was the very first to prove he had what it took, and many fans are wondering how his career is shaping up. When Wray won the reality TV competition, he was only 27-years-old, with a very bright future. What many don't know is that his win happened while he was battling a prescription painkiller addiction.
A few years before Wray made his debut on the first season of Hell's Kitchen, he had back surgery for scoliosis, but the surgery soon proved disastrous. The metal rods inserted into his back snapped. Doctors prescribed painkillers, and soon enough, Wray was hooked on the drugs. However, Wray considered himself a functioning addict and was able to win himself a spot on Ramsay's now-famous reality competition series. While he had a tough start, he was often the one leading the Hell's Kitchen team. By the end of the series, he proved to be the victor. All the while, Wray was still taking prescription painkillers at an alarming rate. Shortly after his win, things started to go downhill.
Gordan Ramsay had offered to take on the chef and mentor him in London. According to interviews with Mashed, Wray declined Ramsay's job offer. He said, "It was the hardest decision I've ever had to make. I regret it all the time. I was in Hell's Kitchen with a drug problem. I was deathly afraid of going to London with this giant addiction." Despite the offer, Wray had two big silver linings on the horizon.
At the time, Wray had some money from his win. He quickly became head chef at The Standards restaurant in Los Angeles. Soon after that, he went on to open his own restaurant, now known as Tatou. The hit restaurant proved to be successful. So successful, in fact, that Wray prepared to open a new restaurant called HK One. At the same time, he and his wife were expecting their first child.
Unfortunately, Michael Wray's daughter died during childbirth. Over the course of the next couple of years, Wray struggled to keep his head above water. First, he walked away from his hit restaurant Tatou. He and his wife divorced and Wray began living out of his truck. He'd work odd kitchen jobs here and there to sustain his drug habit but eventually found himself living in an underpass in Los Angeles. Michael Wray wound up moving out into the desert where he took nothing but drugs for days. A passerby found the Hell's Kitchen star by the highway and called 911. Wray woke up in the hospital and finally began his road to recovery.
Four years from that day, Wray is happily married once more and is living in San Diego with his wife. Recently, he began raising funds to open a food truck. He hopes to drive the truck cross country, to serve food, and to help those who are struggling like he was. Some fans hope to see Wray return to Hell's Kitchen in another capacity.
Source: Mashed