Hacker breaks into Ina Garten's Facebook and shares an Olive Garden recipe

Store-bought may be fine for Ina Garten, but an Olive Garden copycat recipe is one step too far.

The Barefoot Contessa's Facebook page was hacked this week. Interestingly, instead of sharing obvious spam or profanities, the hacker shared an Olive Garden Chicken Scampi copycat recipe from a page called "Only For You."

"How you know Ina Garten’s Facebook account has been hacked: instead of being her Hamptons-dwelling, Cosmo-sipping, 'good olive oil' using self, she’s suddenly become your Jell-o salad-making great-aunt from Iowa who’s always posting Olive Garden copycat recipes," Emily Pressman tweeted with a screenshot.

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How you know Ina Garten's Facebook account has been hacked: instead of being her Hamptons-dwelling, Cosmo-sipping, "good olive oil" using self, she's suddenly become your Jell-o salad-making great-aunt from Iowa who's always posting Olive Garden copycat recipes. (Ahem, @Meta...) pic.twitter.com/Ll2H2rel0P

— Emily Pressman (@emilypressman) June 16, 2023

In a post from Garten on June 16, she explained the incident.

"Thank you to everyone who alerted me that my Facebook page was hacked, and to Meta for helping us get our page back!" Garten shared. "I will continue to post my favorite recipes here and read all of your wonderful comments!"

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Garten is known for using high-quality ingredients, so it makes sense that her fans were confused by the hacker’s recipe-sharing.

“I knew something was up," commented chef Noel Cunningham. "Once I saw that profile pic changed to pie I’m like dam they got her."

"I thought something was weird!! You always share something personal when sharing your recipes and this was just recipes and out of season," one fan wrote.

"I knew you would not have shared an Olive Garden Copycat recipe!!" commented another.

"Thank you for the information. I was inundated with so many recipes that looked delish, then I clicked on one and said my phone was compromised," wrote yet another. "Dang!"

Garten's Facebook page is now back to normal. All of the extremely off-brand recipes have been deleted, and her profile picture is back to being incredibly on-brand — a professional photo of Garten holding a vase of roses over a perfectly roasted chicken — rather than a photo of pie.

This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:

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