All About Wolfgang Puck's Wife, Gelila Assefa Puck
Wolfgang Puck and his wife Gelila Assefa attend the ceremony honoring Wolfgang Puck with a star on The Hollywood Walk of Fame on April 26, 2017.
Pretty much everyone loves Wolfgang Puck, but none more than Wolfgang Puck's wife.
Gelila Assefa Puck is the chef's third wife and mother to his two youngest sons.
"I'm the happiest woman on the planet. I feel like he's a gift," Assefa told Harper's Bazaar in 2007. "I'm lucky to have him in my life." Aw!
Get to know the couple, as well as Wolfgang Puck's ex-wife Barbara Lazaroff.
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Who is Wolfgang Puck's wife?
Puck is married to Gelila Assefa Puck. Assefa, born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, is a designer, creative director, philanthropist and activist, as well as founder and chairwoman of the Dream for Africa Foundation. She moved to the United States as a teen and met Wolfgang Puck at a pivotal time in her life.
"Wolf came into my life the very same week that my father died," she told Spectrum News. "I really felt like my father put him in my life before he left."
While getting her design career off the ground, Assefa Puck met Puck at a business dinner at Spago, then later worked the door of the eatery. She briefly moved to New York City, but Puck flew out to the Big Apple, declared his love for her and ushered her back to Los Angeles, she recalled to Harper's Bazaar, adding, "It was the most powerful thing I've ever experienced." They married in 2007.
In addition to her humanitarian work, Assefa Puck also flexes her creative muscle in curating art for the walls of Wolfgang's many restaurants. "I see the restaurant wall as a voice, as a stage for me," she explained. "How do we use those voices, those stages to connect with the guests? I found art to be one of the most powerful tools to communicate messaging, to highlight what is important."
She also has an important role in Puck's life beyond being his wife and the mother of his two youngest sons: She dresses him!
"I buy all his clothes," she told Harper's Bazaar. "I like to keep him in classic colors: gray, black, navy. I think men, in general, should wear those colors."
Wolfgang Puck was previously married to Barbara Lazaroff and Marie France Trouillot.
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Who is Wolfgang Puck's first wife?
Marie France Trouillot is Puck's first wife. They were married from 1975 to 1980. Little is known about Trouillot, as she and Puck split before he became a household name.
Does Wolfgang Puck have a family?
FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images
He sure does!
Gelila Assefa and Wolfgang Puck share two sons, Oliver Wolfgang and Alexander Puck. He and ex Lazaroff share his eldest sons, Byron Puck and Dr. Cameron Lazaroff-Puck. Cameron is father to the chef's first grandchild, Maxwell Lyubim Lazaroff-Puck, born in December 2022.
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Why did Wolfgang and Barbara divorce?
David Keeler/Liaison Agency
Puck and Lazaroff, a celebrated interior designer, had a meet-cute in 1979 when she appealed to him to deter another guy from bugging her at a nightclub. He invited her to one of his cooking classes at Ma Maison the next day, and told PEOPLE that when she walked into the restaurant, he was so struck by her beauty that he "dropped a glob of butter on the floor."
They married in 1983, and the couple mixed business and pleasure, as Lazaroff was—and remains—his business partner. Before he even launched his own eateries, she already got him to quadruple his salary as a chef. Lazaroff helped design Puck's restaurant interiors and is credited as popularizing the open-kitchen layout common in casual fine dining.
The couple divorced in November 2003, with Lazaroff citing "irreconcilable differences" in her petition. A rep for Puck told The Los Angeles Times that the split was an amicable one, and friends and associates of the pair weren't surprised that they were able to work together long after their marriage was over.
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