Guy Fieri revealed details about his iconic flame covered t-shirt that have spiraled into a viral meme during an appearance on the “Bad Friends” podcast.
The “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” star joined Andrew Santino and Bobby Lee for an episode of “Bad Friends” on September 15, revealing the story behind his seemingly signature button down shirt adorned with flames.
“People ask me all the time about the flame shirt,” Fieri said. “You know that was one picture with a flame shirt?”
“You never wore that again?” Santino asked.
“No, I never wore it in the first place,” the Food Network star laughed.
Fieri pointed out the shirt says Johnny Garlic’s near the shoulder, the name of the chain restaurant he co-founded in 1996 alongside his business partner Steven Gruber.
“We were doing a promotion for the barbecue and the whole thing, and so my manager at the time says, ‘Hey here’s this flame shirt. Put this on, this will be a good promo piece,'” he said. “So it was. It was a flyer, like a door hanger or something and boy has it lived on in perpetuity.”
“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.”
In a 2022 interview with PEOPLE, Fieri said several of the restaurants staff wore the flame shirt.
“We had several of our staff wear a flame shirt, that’s where that picture came from,” he told PEOPLE. “It had nothing to do with an image. Someone got it, somebody ran with it. But it’s hysterical, don’t get me wrong.”
Guy Fieri Talks About Flame Shirt Popularity
The 57-year-old revealed he gets 10 bachelorette parties a week at one of his restaurant Guy Fieri’s Vegas Kitchen & Bar.
“If I was smart, I would have capitalized on making every shirt like that,” Fieri joked.
Flame Shirt Makes Its Way Into Merch and Colleges
GettyMerchandise of Fieri sporting the flame top has been sold across various styles, including stickers, banners and earrings.
The iconic shirt has even popped up in school spirit week looks. In 2022, a middle school teacher shared a TikTok of her dressed in the shirt with a white wig and goatee replicating Fieri’s appearance.
Fieri’s daughter-in-law Tara Bernstein encountered a fan dressed in a matching flame shirt and pants while visiting a college campus.
“POV: you and your fiancé are visiting your brother in law at college and see someone dressed up as their dad in the stands…” she wrote in a TikTok video.
