Half Baked Harvest's Tieghan Gerard Addresses Her Critics in Wide-Ranging Interview: 'It's Time' (Exclusive)

Tieghan Gerard, creator of the wildly popular food blog Half Baked Harvest, has more than 5.5 million followers on Instagram and 786,000 followers on TikTok, but she makes one thing clear: “I’m not a scroller.”

“I’ve always been really good about it,” she tells PEOPLE over the phone from her family’s Colorado estate. “To be honest, I really don’t spend much time on social media outside of work.”

Still, Gerard, 30, is aware of the criticism he receives online, whether it’s accusations of cultural appropriation or comments about his weight.

“I’m excited about the opportunity to speak, because I’ve always chosen not to,” she told PEOPLE exclusively. “I think it’s served me well, but I also think it’s time. I started this business at 18; I’m 30 now. I’m a completely different person. I’m a different person than I was a year ago. I’m constantly growing and learning. “The key incentive for Gerard to speak now is 2023 The New York Times a profile written about her titled “Half-baked Harvest Star Inspires Loyalty — And Controversy.” Gerard kept quiet after the announcement – but it’s still one of the top hits when you search for her name.

I think you really need to remember to trust your gut

— TIEGHAN GERARD

“I think you really have to remember to trust your intuition, because in that case I should have trusted myself,” she says of the interview with times. “From the first day something was not right for me. I called [the writer] here in Colorado to my home. It was a process that lasted more than a year, and I talked to her and it was always seen in the light of positivity and highlighting the recipes and cookbooks I wrote. It was really wrong.”

– It’s sad, but I continued on, because what else are you going to do? adds Gerard.

Responding to, The New York Times says PEOPLE in a statement: “We disagree with Ms. Gerard’s characterization of our profile. Our reporting strives to be fair and we make no promises that our reporting will be ‘positive’.”

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When Gerard first started her blog in 2012, she couldn’t have imagined that it would grow into the monolith of a business it is today.

Back then I was a timid, very shy 18-year-old who didn’t go to school, lost in what I wanted to do in life, she says. “I picked something to do and went with it, and I’ve been working day in and day out on that website and building a community that’s truly loving. I know we’re talking about haters and skeptics right now, but I mean, that’s the smallest group of people , unfortunately they make the most noise.”

Tieghan Gerard at the presentation of his cookbook 2022.

Stefanie Keenan/Getty

Gerard, a self-described “introvert,” says: “I don’t think anyone who knew me growing up would have guessed that this is what I would be doing.”

“I still, to this day, have huge amounts of anxiety and stress, and I keep a lot of things with me,” she says. “I’ve learned the tools to deal with them, to make things easier, to push through. But I’m definitely the type of person who wants to show off, not just to the people I’m sharing recipes for or to the community, but also to myself.”

When Gerard was a child, she always imagined that she would work in fashion. “I lived and breathed it,” she says.

Half Baked Harvest’s Tieghan Gerard responds to ‘negative comments’ about her weight

She was greatly influenced by her grandmother. “She was my best friend and we did everything together when I was younger,” she says. “She loved to shop. She loved to go to lunch, she loved to go to dinner, all of that. I was lucky enough to join her, and we would do everything together, from going to the garden store to the mall to the Prada store. The woman is really knew how to build a beautiful collection over the years.”

At 18, Gerard started a fashion school in Los Angeles for design and merchandising, but quickly realized it was “too soon for me” to be so far from home.

“That’s when I came home and started a website because my mother encouraged me to,” she says.

Along with fashion, cooking has long been Gerard’s passion. As a child, she often helped her mother prepare dinners for their growing family. (Gerard is one of eight children.)

“I love my family, but it was chaos when I was a child,” she says. “My dad worked 9 to 5. My mom had her hands full with the kids, including me. We’d have chocolate chip cookies before dinner and we’d eat anywhere between 8 and 10 p.m. I just started cooking.. I mean that I was watching an episode of Rachael Ray then 30-minute meals was involved, and she made this cheeseburger mac and cheese. I made the dish and my brother liked it. I just kind of kept going and never stopped.”

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Gerard admits that the trip wasn’t always perfect and that she mispronounced certain dishes and foods, which got her called out over the years.

“I grew up in a small town and, yes, I definitely mispronounce things,” she says. “I’ll totally take it. I have a really hard time with it. There’s learning disabilities involved. I’m not trying to disparage the culture or anything like that. I’m just trying to share good food.”

She has not been officially diagnosed with a learning disorder, but says dyslexia and ADHD run in her family.

“Sometimes I read things and it’s literally right in front of me and I’m saying something completely different,” she says. “I have a hard time with left and right — let’s put it that way. I also can’t spell for a living.”

Gerard denies previous accusations of cultural appropriation. In 2021, she renamed the recipe “Simple Sesame Chicken and Noodles in Spicy Soup” after receiving backlash for calling it “Weeknight ginger chicken pho ga” without including traditional Vietnamese pho preparation methods.

“At the end of the day, you really have to remember that I’m just a cook like everyone else who shares recipes,” she says. “It includes cuisines from all over the world because I, like everyone else, can get a little bored when they cook. I love exotic flavors. I don’t claim to be an expert and never have have claimed to be an expert.”

Tieghan Gerard May 2, 2024

John Lamparski/Getty

As for the accusations that she copied recipes from other bloggers, she calls them “astonishing.”

“I fully believe that I have never copied a recipe,” she says. “That’s just crazy. I loved the elements of the recipes, absolutely. I never used salsa verde until I saw someone using it, and now I use salsa verde in so many recipes. But did I copy the recipes? No. actually try not to look at other people’s recipes .”

“I mean, there are five million recipes for broccoli cheddar soup on the Internet,” she continues. “So yeah, mine probably looks pretty similar to someone else’s. I don’t claim to be the inventor of any of this.”

Instead, Gerard focuses on creating her own food, through the rustic style and photography she has become known for. It goes back to the lack of scrolling.

“I don’t follow a lot of food content. I don’t really follow anything because I don’t want to be influenced by other people’s recipes,” she says.

There is no malice behind anything I try to do

— TIEGHAN GERARD

He prefers to draw inspiration from his “family, seasons, travels,” he says.

Another common claim in Gerard’s comment section is that she has an eating disorder. She says the speculation caught her “off guard for such a long time.”

“At the end of the day, body shaming is body shaming,” she says. “It’s, I think, a really horrible thing to do on the internet. I really don’t have much to say about it because I think it’s really sad, and no one should be commenting on someone’s body. Body shaming of any kind is wrong.”

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Gerard says listening to podcasts is a guiding light through all the negativity. “I know it sounds so funny, but there’s so much that I’ve listened to over the years that has really inspired me,” she says.

She is also grateful to her family and friends, including her frequent collaborator Benny Blanco.

“Benny and another very, very good friend, you always tell me that if you don’t have haters, you’re not doing anything good,” she says. “Benny came into my DMs about a year and a half ago and since then he’s been such a great friend, constantly giving me advice, especially business wise. I know he looks like a silly guy online but he really is a wealth of knowledge.”

In the coming months, Gerard says her followers can expect to branch out even more into the lifestyle. She also has a new cookbook coming out in November and is teasing another restaurant collaboration (from April to May, a limited-edition Half Baked Harvest menu was served at the FIG restaurant at the Fairmont Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica, California).

Nadia Caterina Munno, Benny Blanco and Tieghan Gerard May 2, 2024

John Lamparski/Getty

“There’s so much more I want to do,” she says.

But her immediate goal is simple: “I want to bring value to people’s lives. I want to bring joy. There’s no harm behind anything I’m trying to do,” she says. “At the end of the day, you can feel so tired and so exhausted and sometimes so defeated because it’s been a hard day. But I get up and do it all over again because first, I’m crazy, and second, because I love it.”

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Source: HIS Education