Who Is Rishia Haas? The Inspiring Life Story of Andrew Zimmern’s Ex-Wife

Rishia Haas is best known publicly as the former wife of celebrity chef, television presenter and James Beard Award winner Andrew Zimmern. While her ex-husband built a career in front of the camera, Rishia chose a very different path, one defined by privacy, family and quiet dedication to community work. Her story matters not because she sought the spotlight, but because she never did, and that choice says a great deal about who she is.

In this article, you’ll find a clear, honest look at Rishia Haas’s life: how she met Andrew Zimmern, what their marriage and family life looked like, why they eventually divorced, and what is genuinely known (as opposed to widely repeated but unverified) about her life since then.

Quick Facts: Rishia Haas Bio Table

Category	Details
Full name	Rishia Anne Haas
Known for	Former wife of chef and TV presenter Andrew Zimmern
Nationality	American
Hometown	Anoka, Minnesota, USA
Current residence	Edina, Minnesota, USA
Marriage	Married Andrew Zimmern on 26 December 2002
Divorce	Finalised in 2018, after 16 years of marriage
Child	One son, Noah Zimmern, born 2005
Education	Anoka High School; Augsburg College
Career	Administrative roles; work connected to addiction recovery support services
Ex-husband’s profession	Chef, television host, author, four-time James Beard Award winner
Public profile	Deliberately private; does not use social media to share her life
Exact birth date, height and net worth	Not publicly confirmed by any verified source

Who Is Rishia Haas?

Rishia Haas is an American woman from Anoka, Minnesota, who became known to the public primarily through her marriage to Andrew Zimmern, the presenter of Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern. Outside of that connection, she has intentionally kept her personal life away from cameras, interviews and social media.

She grew up in Anoka, a small city in Minnesota, and attended Anoka High School before going on to Augsburg College. Reports consistently describe a fairly ordinary Midwestern upbringing, with no indication that she sought a public-facing career at any point.

Professionally, Rishia has worked in administrative roles and has also been connected to organisations that support people recovering from addiction. This detail is worth pausing on, because it lines up with what Andrew Zimmern himself has said publicly about their marriage: that his own struggles with addiction placed real strain on their relationship, and that Rishia stood by him through some of the hardest years of his life.

It’s worth being clear about what is and isn’t known here. Rishia Haas has never given a tell-all interview, written a memoir, or sat down with a journalist to walk through her side of the story. Almost everything written about her, including much of what appears in this article, is drawn from public records, statements Andrew Zimmern has made in his own interviews, and patterns that have been consistently reported across multiple outlets. Where a detail cannot be reliably confirmed, such as her exact date of birth, her current net worth, or precise physical details, it is left out of this piece rather than repeated as fact simply because it appears on other websites. That distinction matters, particularly for someone who has gone to real lengths to keep her private life private.

Rishia Haas’s Background and Early Life

Rishia Haas grew up in Anoka, Minnesota, a city just north of Minneapolis with a population in the tens of thousands, known locally for its small-town character and its claim to fame as the self-proclaimed “Halloween Capital of the World.” Growing up in a Midwestern community like Anoka is often associated with a grounded, close-knit upbringing, and that context helps explain the steady, low-key persona she has maintained throughout her adult life.

She attended Anoka High School before continuing her education at Augsburg College (now Augsburg University) in Minneapolis, a private liberal arts institution. Her academic background points toward a conventional, community-oriented path rather than one aimed at public life, which fits neatly with the way she has conducted herself ever since.

Before meeting Andrew Zimmern, Rishia was already working in food-adjacent and administrative settings in Minnesota. This professional grounding in the Minneapolis-St Paul food and hospitality scene is part of what eventually brought her into Andrew’s orbit.

How Rishia Haas Met Andrew Zimmern

According to widely repeated accounts, Rishia and Andrew met around the year 2000 while both were connected to a cooking school in Minnesota, with Andrew working in a teaching capacity at the time. A shared interest in food and community brought them closer, and the relationship developed from there.

This was before Andrew Zimmern became a household name. His breakout show, Bizarre Foods, did not premiere until 2006, which means Rishia knew him first as a private individual, not as a television personality. That timing matters, because it means their relationship began on ordinary footing, long before fame entered the picture.

At the time they met, Andrew Zimmern had already lived through a turbulent chapter of his own life. Before establishing himself in food media, he had worked in restaurant kitchens in New York City and had spoken openly, in later years, about a period of serious substance abuse that led to job loss and, eventually, a decision to get sober and rebuild his life in Minnesota. By the time he and Rishia crossed paths, he was in the process of that rebuild, working in food education and slowly re-establishing his career from the ground up.

Understanding that context helps explain the relationship that followed. Rishia wasn’t simply meeting a rising television star; she was meeting someone in the middle of putting his life back together. That backdrop of recovery and rebuilding appears to have shaped the early years of their relationship, and arguably shaped Rishia’s own later work in recovery support services as well.

When Did They Get Married?

Rishia Haas and Andrew Zimmern married on 26 December 2002, in a small ceremony reported to have been attended by close friends and family rather than a large public event. This fits the pattern of a couple who, even at the very start, preferred a modest and private approach to major life moments.

Family Life: Rishia Haas and Her Son Noah

In 2005, Rishia and Andrew welcomed a son, Noah Zimmern. By most accounts, Noah has remained the central focus of Rishia’s life both during the marriage and in the years since the divorce.

As Andrew Zimmern’s television career grew rapidly through the 2000s and 2010s, filming and travel schedules pulled him away from home for extended periods. Bizarre Foods alone required extensive international travel, often taking him to remote locations for weeks at a time, and that was before accounting for the spin-off series, hosting work, writing commitments and public appearances that came with growing fame. Andrew has spoken candidly in interviews about how demanding this period was on his family life, acknowledging that his career came at a cost to time spent at home.

Rishia, meanwhile, is widely described as the steadying presence for Noah during these years, managing day-to-day family life while her husband’s public profile expanded. This is a familiar pattern in households where one partner’s career involves frequent travel and high visibility: the partner who stays closer to home often ends up carrying a disproportionate share of the everyday responsibilities of raising a child, from school runs to medical appointments to simply being a consistent, present figure in a child’s daily routine.

It’s also worth noting that Noah grew up largely outside the public eye. Unlike some children of television personalities, he has not been paraded through interviews or promotional appearances, which appears to reflect a deliberate choice by both of his parents to shield him from the more intrusive aspects of his father’s fame. That shared instinct, protecting their son’s normal childhood, may be one of the clearest signs that Rishia and Andrew, whatever difficulties arose in their marriage, remained aligned on what mattered most.

Why Did Rishia Haas and Andrew Zimmern Divorce?

Rishia Haas and Andrew Zimmern divorced in 2018, after 16 years of marriage. Multiple accounts describe the separation as amicable rather than contentious, with both parties reportedly handling it with a degree of mutual respect rather than public conflict.

A few consistent themes come up across accounts of the marriage’s end:

• Career pressure. Andrew’s increasingly demanding filming and travel schedule as Bizarre Foods grew into a major franchise reduced the time he could spend at home.
• Personal struggles. Andrew Zimmern has spoken openly in past interviews about his history with substance abuse earlier in his life, and about the toll that period took on his relationships.
• A slow drift rather than a single event. Rather than one dramatic falling-out, reports describe a gradual widening distance between the couple as their lives moved in different directions.

Notably, Andrew Zimmern has publicly credited Rishia with supporting him through difficult periods and has spoken respectfully of her role as a mother, which is one of the few details about their relationship that comes directly from him rather than from secondary reporting. That kind of public acknowledgement, offered years after a divorce and without any obvious incentive beyond honesty, tends to carry more weight than the speculative detail found on many biography-style websites.

How Did the Divorce Affect Their Public Image?

Divorces involving a public figure often become tabloid fodder, complete with unnamed sources, dramatic claims and speculation about infidelity or financial disputes. Notably, that never really happened here. Neither Rishia nor Andrew appears to have used the media to air grievances about the other, and there is no credible record of a contentious custody battle or public dispute over assets.

This restraint is arguably one of the more admirable parts of the story. In an era where celebrity splits regularly generate months of headlines, Rishia Haas and Andrew Zimmern managed to end a 16 year marriage with minimal public fallout, largely because both parties chose not to feed the story.

What Is Rishia Haas Doing Now?

Since the divorce, Rishia Haas has continued to live a low-profile life in Minnesota, reportedly in Edina, not far from where she raised her son. She has not used the divorce, or her connection to a well-known public figure, as a platform. There are no verified interviews, social media accounts or public statements from her discussing the marriage or its end in detail.

What is more consistently reported is that she has continued working in administrative and recovery-support-related roles, and that she remains focused on her family life. Beyond that, verified public information about her current circumstances is limited, which appears to be entirely by her own choice.

This lack of a public trail isn’t unusual, and it isn’t a mystery either. Many people connected to famous partners, whether through marriage, family or friendship, simply decline to build a public identity around that connection. Rishia Haas appears to be firmly in that category. She has not launched a podcast trading on her ex-husband’s name, has not written a book about the marriage, and has not built a social media following around her divorce story, all of which would have been relatively easy paths to take given the public interest in Andrew Zimmern’s life.

Does Rishia Haas Have a Relationship With Andrew Zimmern Today?

There is no confirmed public information suggesting an acrimonious relationship between the two since the divorce. Given that they share a son together, and given Andrew’s own public comments praising Rishia as a parent, it is reasonable to assume a level of ongoing, cooperative contact focused on Noah, though neither party has detailed the specifics of their post-divorce relationship publicly.

Why Rishia Haas’s Story Resonates With People

It would be easy to reduce Rishia Haas’s story to a single label: “celebrity ex-wife.” But the reason people search for her name and want to understand her story is usually not really about Andrew Zimmern at all. It’s about the quieter, less glamorous side of a high-profile marriage: raising a child while a partner’s career takes off, supporting someone through personal struggles, and then choosing dignity and privacy over publicity when the marriage ends.

That is a relatable story for a great many people, celebrity connection or not.

Final Thoughts

Rishia Haas’s life story is, in many ways, defined by the choices she has made rather than the fame attached to her name. She married Andrew Zimmern before he became well known, raised their son through the demanding years of his rise to television stardom, and navigated a divorce with reported grace rather than public drama. Since then, she has continued to live quietly in Minnesota, focused on family and community work rather than public attention. It’s a story less about celebrity, and more about steadiness, privacy and the choice to define a life on one’s own terms.

Frequently Asked Questions About Rishia Haas

Who is Rishia Haas?

Rishia Haas is an American woman from Anoka, Minnesota, best known as the former wife of celebrity chef and television host Andrew Zimmern. She has worked in administrative and recovery-support roles and has deliberately kept her personal life private.

When did Rishia Haas marry Andrew Zimmern?

Rishia Haas married Andrew Zimmern on 26 December 2002. The couple were together for 16 years before divorcing in 2018.

Do Rishia Haas and Andrew Zimmern have children?

Yes, they have one son together, Noah Zimmern, who was born in 2005. Rishia has largely remained focused on raising Noah both during and after her marriage.

Why did Rishia Haas and Andrew Zimmern divorce?

Reports point to a combination of Andrew’s demanding television career and past personal struggles as contributing factors, with the two reportedly growing apart gradually rather than separating over a single dramatic event. The divorce, finalised in 2018, is widely described as amicable.

Is Rishia Haas active on social media?

No. Unlike her ex-husband, Rishia Haas has chosen not to maintain a public social media presence, and she has largely avoided interviews or public commentary about her life since the divorce.

Where does Rishia Haas live now?

Rishia Haas is reported to still live in Minnesota, in the Edina area, close to where she and Andrew Zimmern raised their son. This has not been confirmed through an official statement from Rishia herself, but it is consistently reported across multiple sources.

What does Rishia Haas do for work?

Rishia Haas has worked in administrative roles and has been connected to organisations offering addiction recovery support services. Precise current job details have not been publicly confirmed, in keeping with her generally private approach to her career and personal life.

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