Jacques Pépin Explains the 'Biggest Change' to His Daily Life Since His Wife Gloria Died in 2020

Mar. 15, 2025

Photo: Brian Doben

Jacques Pépinis not a morning person.

“I don’t really go to bed before midnight,” the celebrated French chef tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “I am used to working in restaurants all my life where I finished work at 10 p.m.”

His daily routine of drinking coffee and reading the news has remained constant for decades. But since his wife, Gloria,died in 2020, at age 83, evenings are different.

Gloria died nearly two years ago on Dec. 5, 2020 with family and friends around her, according to astatementshared on the chef’s Facebook page at the time.

A fixture on public television for 40 years, Pépin still lives and works out of the home he and Gloria shared since 1976. When he isn’t writing one of his 30-plus cookbooks or shooting his low-budget cooking tutorials for 1.6 million Facebook followers—a project he started at the beginning of the pandemic—he’s pursuing a lesser-known passion: painting.

Jacques Pepin and Gloria Pepin.

His newest book,Art of the Chicken, out now, combines his two creative outlets. In addition to stories of his life and basic recipes, like roast chicken with winter vegetables, the book is filled with colorful fowl-themed artwork in his signature style.

“I use basically only acrylics. But I dilute them with a lot of water. Sometimes I use a sponge, so it’s like a watercolor,” he says. “I don’t try to validate what I do. At some point the painting takes hold of myself, and I move in that direction. I put a shape here or a color because it just feels right.”

Hisoriginals, starting at $1,000 and selling for upwards of $30,000, partially benefit hisJacques Pépin Foundation, which offers free culinary classes to individuals facing employment barriers like homelessness or criminal records.

Art of the Chickenis the first book Pépin has published since Gloria died and is dedicated to his late wife, who continues to be a part of his painting process and “will always be a part of it.”

Clockwise: Pépin’s son-in-law Rollie; daughter Claudine; his late wife, Gloria; his poodle Gaston; and granddaughter Shorey.Tom Hopkins

While developing recipes for Howard Johnson’s in the mid-’60s, Pépin met Gloria in the Catskills, where he worked as a ski instructor on the weekends. Despite being a talented skier, Gloria found him attractive and signed up for a private lesson. “He was so cute, I thought he was probably gay,” Gloria isrecalledsaying in the family’s statement after her death. They wed in 1966 and welcomed daughter Claudine, now 54, shortly after.

In 1974, a near-fatal car crash permanently affected Pépin’s career. “I wasn’t supposed to walk again,” he says. “I couldn’t stand being on the stove 14 to 15 hours a day as a cook. I was already starting to write, so I ended up doing more of that. It moved my life in a different direction. Is it better? Not as good? I don’t know for sure, but I know I’ve been very lucky.”

For more on Jacques Pépin, pick up the new issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands everywhere Friday.

source: people.com