Billionaire Reportedly Paid Guy Fieri $100,000 to Be His Friend

Yes, money can buy pretty much everything

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Guy Fieri attends the 2010 South Beach Wine and Food Festival Grand Tasting Village on Feb. 28, 2010 in Miami Beach, Fla.

If you were a billionaire, how would you spend your money? According to a new book, at least one billionaire would drop a chunk of change to make celebrity chef Guy Fieri his friend for a day.

Allen Salkin’s new book, From Scratch: Inside the Food Network, claims that the embattled hedge fund manager Steve Cohen paid the Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives host to come to Connecticut and reenact an episode of his hit show with Cohen riding shotgun. Page Six quotes Salkin as saying that the billionaire “paid Guy Fieri $100,000 to be his friend for a day.” The two reportedly became real friends after the one-time payout.

A spokesperson for Cohen told Page Six that the story is not true, but said the two do know each other, which is something that avid fans of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives already know. One of episode of the popular Food Network show featured Fieri driving up to the Fairfield, Connecticut hot dog restaurant Super-Duper Weenie, mentioning that his “friends” Alex and Steve (a.k.a. Cohen and his wife) were the ones who told him about it. Fieri added that they invited him over to their house for dinner one night and the hot dog truck showed up.

The two friends may not have had much time to catch up over a watermelon margarita or plate of Awesome Pretzel Chicken Tenders, because Cohen, the founder of SAC Capital Advisors, is currently facing civil charges filed by the SEC claiming that he failed to prevent insider trading by two of his employees. According to Forbes, Cohen may be close to settling the case by paying a record $1 billion penalty.
Perhaps in his downtime Cohen should spend his time and money working on a reboot of Can’t Buy Me Love.

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