Sandra Lee claims a comment ex-boyfriend Andrew Cuomo made to her in the spring of 2019 was the straw that broke the camel’s back in their then-deteriorating relationship.
“I was in my kitchen,” she told Us Weekly in a cover story published Tuesday, “and he said something, and the minute he said it, I knew what he’d just said. And every window and door closed. And that was it.”
The TV chef, 58, refused to elaborate on the remark, simply saying, “He knows what it is; I know what it is.”
Cuomo, for his part, told the outlet he did not see Lee during this time period.
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The former couple announced their breakup after 14 years via a joint statement in September 2019, four months after Pvnew revealed that they were living separate lives.
Lee admitted to Us Weekly that she and the disgraced ex-New York governor had their fair share of issues long before they formally parted ways.
In fact, her self-described lowest point came on her birthday in 2015, shortly after her double mastectomy following her breast cancer diagnosis. According to Lee, she “spent the day” by herself.
“I was sitting on my lawn alone,” she explained. “My birthday was a precious day to me, especially that one. I’m not someone who feels sorry for themselves, but that day was a bit much for me.”
Meanwhile, Cuomo, 66, denied the claim and said he cleared his schedule to be there.
Lee noted that although he eventually came home and they went out for dinner, the damage had already been done.
On the heels of her heartbreak — a time she described as “s–tty” — Lee’s beloved uncle in California became terminally ill, so she moved across the country to care for him.
After he died in December 2023, she said, she “went into the bathroom and just started throwing up.”
“I think that was my body just purging that five years of time,” she explained, pausing. “Actually, that had to be the lowest point of my life — leaning over a toilet, vomiting from sadness and grief.”
Reflecting on her failed relationship with Cuomo and the passing of her “only real dad,” Lee told Us Weekly, “I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I will never get over the heartbreak of loss of the last 10 years. The grief has been endless, but I will use it to fuel and feed me and make me wiser and stronger.”
With tears in her eyes, she added, “I would say that I’ve had the most challenging decade of my life.”
Amid the challenges, however, Lee met Ben Youcef. The Post broke the news of their engagement in August 2021.
Though “meeting Ben was incredible,” she was admittedly “terrified” of loving again. In fact, she revealed it took months before anything physical happened between the two.
“I hadn’t been intimate in years and years. I literally felt like a virgin at 55,” Lee shared, “and I just
didn’t want to get involved again.”
But Youcef, 45, “waited” until she was ready.
Asked to contrast the actor with the former politician, Lee told the outlet, “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.”
