Guy Fieri Shares the Origin of His Much-Memed Flame Shirt

Guy Fieri’s flame shirt has become a widely recognizable meme — but the celebrity chef says it was never a part of his everyday wardrobe.

During an appearance on the podcast Bad Friends with hosts Andrew Santino and Bobby Lee, the Food Network personality, 57, revealed that he only wore the fiery garment one time.

Fieri was quick to note that there was just “one picture” of him donning the black, gold, and red bowling shirt.

“You never wore that again,” Santino observed, to which Fieri exclaimed, “No, I never wore it in the first place!”

“Do you have flames on your body, tattoos-wise?” Lee asked, as Fieri assured him, “No!”

The hosts then showed an image of Fieri in what Santino referred to as an “iconic” shirt.

“That’s Johnny Garlic’s,” Fieri explained. “That’s one of my restaurants, and we were doing a promotion for the barbecue and the whole thing. And so my manager at the time says, ‘Hey, here’s flame shirt. Put this on; it would be a good promo piece.’ So, it was. It was like a flyer, you know, like a door hanger or something. And boy, has it lived on in perpetuity.”

The Guy’s Grocery Games host went on to detail the fan events where he’s seen the shirt replicated.

“I mean, there’s a Fieri Con in New York,” he said. “There’s a couple of them around the country.”

The culinary star added that about 10 bachelorette parties show up each week to Guy Fieri’s Vegas Kitchen & Bar.

“I mean, I love it,” he said. “If you can’t laugh at yourself and you can’t poke fun at it and have a good time with it, I mean life is too short.”

Earlier this year, his daughter-in-law Tara Bernstein even shared a TikTok video of a fan dressed as Guy at a college basketball game. She and Hunter Fieri, who recently tied the knot, were visiting Hunter’s brother, Ryder, 19, at San Diego State University.

The Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives star also reflected on the flame shirt’s popularity during an interview with PEOPLE in 2022.

“We had several of our staff wear a flame shirt, that’s where that picture came from,” he said. “It had nothing to do with an image. Someone got it, somebody ran with it. But it’s hysterical, don’t get me wrong.”