- Rebekah Bean Ripley, a former BYU gymnast, appeared on "Worst Cooks in America."
- She served raw chicken to chefs Gabriele Bertaccini and Anne Burrell on the show.
- Ripley improved her cooking skills, advancing through three episodes before elimination.
SALT LAKE CITY — Rebekah Bean Ripley knew she wasn't a good cook, but she didn't think her skills were so subpar that she'd ever serve someone a plate of raw chicken.
But that's exactly what happened when she made her debut on Food Network's "Worst Cooks in America."
The former BYU gymnast, who lives in Mapleton, had an hour to make a seared chicken dish during the show's season premiere that aired last month.
With all of the lights, cameras and constant reminders from the show's hosts that time is ticking, the contestants face a lot of pressure.
Still, Ripley said, that was no excuse for serving raw chicken to world-class chefs Gabriele Bertaccini and the late Anne Burrell.
"That was just truly shocking to me, because I had no idea it was raw," Ripley recently told the Deseret News. "That was a moment where I was like, 'Is this real life? Like, did I actually do that?' Like, knew I was bad, but I didn't think I was serve raw chicken bad."
The moment marked one of the biggest — and most humbling — surprises of her time on the show, which ended Monday night with her elimination.
But it also gave her some validation: She clearly belonged on "Worst Cooks in America."
Surviving a high stakes cook-off
After the raw chicken fiasco, Ripley found herself on the brink of elimination.
She was in the bottom four, and chefs Burrell and Bertaccini each had just one last spot on their teams.
In a high-stakes cook-off, fighting for a coveted spot, Ripley had 20 minutes to make two tacos.
Before the countdown began, she revealed her strategy to the show's producers: "Just freaking cook the meat."
She may have overcompensated — the chefs said her pork tacos were too dry — but her effort was appreciated enough to secure the final spot on Bertaccini's team.
Over the next couple of weeks, Ripley underwent a culinary boot camp of sorts with her fellow "Worst Cook" contestants as she received instruction and attempted to put together dishes that met the chefs' satisfaction.
The gymnast advanced through three episodes of the competition before getting eliminated Monday night.
But she improved by leaps and bounds in the kitchen — in the third episode, Bertaccini, an Italian chef, actually praised her pork Milanese dish.
In just a few episodes, she came a long way since her application video — which ended with her husband of five years lamenting the fact that he had to try her breaded chicken.
And, she said, she certainly improved since her days as a competitive gymnast at BYU.
Going viral as a BYU gymnast
Over the years, food has largely been on the back burner for Ripley as she has spent her time and energy on competitive gymnastics.
A big reason she never really learned the art of cooking, she said, is because food has always been more about providing fuel to practice and compete rather than for leisure or enjoyment.
With a rigorous training schedule, she's never had much time to experiment in the kitchen. She essentially has three meals on rotation — bagels, salads and quesadillas are her go-tos.
As a gymnast at Brigham Young University, where she balanced practices, schoolwork and competing, Ripley suffered a series of setbacks that all required surgery — including two ACL injuries and a third knee injury, per KSL.
The injuries threw wrench after wrench in her collegiate career, and it wasn't until her senior year that she finally got her shining moment.
At the start of 2023 — nearly four years since her first ACL tear back in 2019 — Ripley returned to the world of competitive gymnastics with a Barbie-themed floor routine.
Although the moment marked a major comeback for the gymnast — she said she was so nervous she thought she was going to throw up — she didn't believe it to be her best performance.
But by the time she got home from the meet, ESPN had posted her routine, she said. And so had a number of other outlets.
To date, Ripley estimates that her viral floor routine racked up anywhere from 80 to 100 million views across all platforms.
"That's definitely a moment that I'll never forget, because it was just so rewarding," she said. "So many years of working hard and not seeing results, and then I finally got them. It felt like all of these years of hardship and working through injuries had finally paid off."
The national attention from the Barbie-inspired floor routine gave Ripley a greater presence on social media — one that likely attracted the attention of a casting producer from the Food Network.
Ripley, who graduated from BYU in 2023, is now using her platform to coach gymnasts on overcoming mental roadblocks in the sport.
The discipline she developed competing in a sport like gymnastics — and overcoming all of her injuries at BYU — she said, came in handy on "Worst Cooks in America."
