The Lesser-Known Truth Of Ayesha Curry

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When it comes to WAGs (a.k.a. wives and girlfriends) of top athletes, there are a few who've carved out their own unique niches in the celebrity landscape, separate from their significant others. Among such names as Victoria Beckham (wife of soccer great David Beckham) and Gabrielle Union (who's married to former NBA star Dwyane Wade) stands Ayesha Curry.

Born in Canada and raised in North Carolina, Curry may be known as the wife of Golden State Warriors phenom Steph Curry, but she's accomplished so much beyond the realm of being a WAG. For example, she's a culinary queenpin who's hosted several TV cooking shows, written cookbooks, and owns a top San Francisco restaurant, International Smoke. She's also an actor, recently starring alongside Lindsay Lohan in the 2024 Netflix holiday rom-com "Irish Wish." As if that wasn't enough, Curry has also been at the center of her own CoverGirl campaign, founded her own lifestyle brand (Sweet July), launched the Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation alongside her husband, and even collaborated on a line of baby products — all while juggling the inherent responsibilities of being a mother of four and wife of one of basketball's hottest stars.

Truly, that's a lot. Yet there's so much more to know about this fascinating public figure. Read on to discover the lesser known truth of Ayesha Curry.

The acting bug bit Ayesha Curry early on. In fact, she booked her first acting role at an age when most kids haven't even learned to tie their shoes. "I had been in entertainment ... since the age of 3," she said during an appearance on the "Girlboss Radio" podcast, as reported by Essentially Sports. According to Curry, she had a small role in a big project, appearing in a Disney holiday hit. "I played the bubble elf in 'The Santa Clause' with Tim Allen," she said, but cautioned fans not to try to find her in the film. "You can't see me in it, I'm nowhere to be found," she explained. 

While that screen credit doesn't appear on her IMDb roster of roles, she got serious about acting in her late teens, landing small roles in TV shows and a movie, "Love for Sale." Throughout 2008 and 2009, Curry — who was then Ayesha Alexander — continued to appear on screen, including bit parts in some Disney Channel series. When revealing three things people may not know about her on "The Rachael Ray Show," Curry recalled, "The third is that I appeared on one episode of 'Hannah Montana' — who knew?"

As she explained on "The World's First Podcast with Sara & Erin Foster," Curry decided to give up on acting shortly after that. "I don't know if the audition thing is working for me," she said (via Essentially Sports), remembering her thoughts at the time. 

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While growing up in Toronto, Ayesha Curry watched her mother, Carol Alexander, support her family by running her own business out of their home. "My mom was a hairstylist and small business owner for, like, 40 years, so I would spend my weekends with her in her salon answering phones for her," Curry remembered during an appearance on the "Fat Mascara" podcast. As Curry recalled, the salon — Sisters with Scissors — operated out of the basement of their home. "I would love to pretend that I was grown, you know, so I think it prepared me for my future life ... those are some of my fondest memories, actually," said Curry of her experience at her mom's salon. 

The lessons that she learned from that seminal period in her life, she explained in an essay she wrote for Bustle, have continued to resonate over the years. "I was able to watch her tenacious work ethic," Curry said of her mother. "That has really stuck with me and influenced how I've built my career."

Interestingly, hanging out in her mom's salon also contributed to the food-centric path she would later take. In the introduction to her 2016 cookbook, "The Seasoned Life" (via the Center for Asian American Media), Curry recalled watching her babysitter in their kitchen whipping up Trinidadian dishes that the youngster would then hand out to her mother's customers. "I would run back and forth from the basement to the kitchen passing out the warm, wrapped-up roti," she wrote. "Good food made everyone okay with the occasional wait."

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During her childhood, Ayesha Curry spent countless hours in her family's kitchen watching meals take shape before her eyes. "My love of food definitely started when I was a little girl. My parents both worked, so cooking was a way I could contribute and I absolutely loved it," she said in an interview with Michelin Guide. 

While that certainly instilled in Curry a love of cooking for others, all the TV cooking shows that she watched in the tiny television set in her bedroom helped shape her future plans. Rachael Ray, she shared, was a particular favorite. 

When Curry finally became the host of her own television cooking show, she learned a big lesson about why most of them are shot in a TV studio — and not the stars' homes. As she explained in an interview with Eater, she was initially excited about shooting her Food Network series, "Ayesha's Homemade," in her own kitchen. Figuring she'd be able to spend more time with her daughters, in reality she hardly saw them at all — which only created extra guilt, knowing they were so near. That was the first and last time she'd ever film a cooking show in her own home. "I thought I could have the best of both worlds," she mused. "I've learned my lesson entirely."

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By 2017, Ayesha Curry had established herself as a major figure in the world of food thanks to her multiple TV cooking shows and her two cookbooks, "The Full Plate," and "The Seasoned Life". That was the year that she partnered with renowned chef Michael Mina to open International Smoke. Situated in San Francisco, the eatery specializes in steaks, ribs, seafood, and veggies that are grilled atop wood fires.

While Curry is certainly no slouch in the kitchen, there's one thing that her partner possesses that she does not: a Michelin star, which he earned through his eponymous San Francisco restaurant, Michael Mina. Interviewed by Michelin Guide, Curry opened up about collaborating with Mina: "We're a convergence of two people from very different backgrounds, but with a shared passion for expressing love through food."

According to Curry, the restaurant's goal was to shine the spotlight on grilling from a worldwide perspective; as she said, the process of grilling food over a fire is common in most cultures, although each type of cuisine tends to utilize different techniques. "It represents that while we all come from different places, we're more alike than we are different," she added. The concept has clearly been a successful one; the pair opened another location of International Smoke in Las Vegas.

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Given Ayesha Curry's immense love of cooking, it would be easy to imagine since marrying Steph Curry that they spend time in the kitchen together whipping up sumptuous family feasts. That conjured-up image, however, is pretty far from the truth. During a 2023 interview with "Access Hollywood" (as reported by Essentially Sports), she revealed that she's banned her husband from their kitchen.

"I love good food. I wanna know that I am gonna be happy with the meal," she said in a backhanded diss of her husband's culinary abilities. She did, however, admit that his cooking skills aren't entirely dismal, and he does have one go-to recipe that he's mastered: a pasta dish with just five ingredients. However, she insisted she enjoys a bit more variety than that. "It's always the same thing," she complained.

"He messed it up only once, and he's recovered tremendously since then," she pointed out when interviewed by Bon Appetit, explaining that Steph had confused his vegetables, which made for an odd substitution. "He bought a tomato and thought it was a bell pepper," she explained. Since then, however, he's come to learn the difference, and can now be trusted to come home from the supermarket with the correct veggies. "I can go grocery shopping in the produce section for sure," he proudly declared.

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As a wife, mother of four children with Steph Curry, TV host, and entrepreneur with a thriving and expanding business empire, Ayesha Curry seemingly has it all. However, she's come to the conclusion that achieving a work-life balance and remaining successful professionally simply isn't possible. At some point, she admitted in an interview with Andscape, something has to give. "I balance it all by realizing there is no such thing as balance," she said.

Speaking with Refinery 29, she expressed similar sentiments about why she feels achieving a perfect balance of family and career was an impossibility. "I always say that I truly don't believe that balance exists," she said. "I like to say there are peaks and valleys." What she has learned, though, is to just keep pressing forward, leaving tough days in the rearview mirror while celebrating victories when they come. "It's acknowledging these moments — letting the bad moments pass and realizing the bigger picture," she summarized.

Another tough lesson that she's learned along the way is that not every venture she attempts is going to be a home run. Having experienced that firsthand, she's come to value the lessons that can come from not hitting it out of the park. "Sometimes you're going to fail and that's OK," she explained in an interview with PureWow, "because you're not judged by whether or not you fail, but how you recover from those failures."

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It's fair to say that Ayesha Curry is a lifelong student who continues to learn and evolve through her experiences, whether that's in her personal space, her public life as a celebrity, or in her various entrepreneurial endeavors. In fact, she's demonstrated that quality by enrolling for business classes at one of the most renowned educational institutions in the world, joining the ranks of celebrities who've received impressive college educations and degrees. "I haven't talked about this publicly, but I'm taking this Harvard Business School online course thing right now," Curry revealed in a 2019 interview with "Girlboss Radio" (via Page Six). "And I've stuck with this so I'm really, I'm really proud of myself."

Once the cat was out of the bag, Harvard Business School Online revealed that she'd taken the university's course in management essentials. "It helped me so much," she told Entrepreneur of the eight-week course, revealing that the information she gleaned from that experience has continued to serve as something of a guiding light for her as she's moved forward to pursue new entrepreneurial opportunities. "I actually printed out the coursework and syllabus at the end of the class, and now I am constantly referencing it, making sure I'm always doing better business," Curry explained.

In 2018, Ayesha Curry and her husband, Steph Curry, did something they'd never done before: they appeared on a TV game show. The couple were joined by his parents and sister when they competed on "Celebrity Family Feud," playing against fellow NBA star Chris Paul and his family.

To say that the Currys did well is putting it mildly. That was particularly true in the "fast money" round, a round where Ayesha proved she was a boss. The goal is to rack up a combined 200 points within that final round; any family who manages to achieve that wins an additional $25,000. Not only did they easily exceed that goal, it was largely due to the efforts of the Food Network host herself, who brought in 194 points during her time at the podium. 

After delivering all those points, it was her husband's turn. The stakes were low, given that he only needed six points to meet the threshold for the prize (donated to their charity, of course). Making light of that, the show's host, comedian Steve Harvey, told Steph that he had good news and bad news for him. The good news, of course, was that his wife had crushed it. The bad news? "If you don't get this, you're out of the league," Harvey quipped.

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After several years without acting roles, Ayesha Curry returned to her roots when she played herself in a 2017 episode of the HBO sports comedy "Ballers," which stars wrestler-turned-thespian Dwayne Johnson. That propelled her back to acting, leading her to guest-star in several TV series. Then, she landed a role in the 2024 Netflix romantic comedy "Irish Wish," starring former child star Lindsay Lohan.

Curry and Lohan were hardly strangers. The two have been friends since 2022, when they were introduced by mutual friend Michael Mina, Curry's partner in their International Smoke restaurant. Mina felt the two women were kindred spirits who would hit it off; "And we've literally been friends ever since," Curry told USA Today. "He was right. Chef knows best." It was Lohan, in fact, who urged Curry to get back into acting with "Irish Wish," convincing her to co-star with her. "And I'm so glad I did, because it's always been a passion of mine," Curry said. "To be able to have that part of myself back has been so nice."

When Lohan and husband Bader Shammas welcomed their first child, baby boy Luai, the "Mean Girls" star asked Curry to be her son's godmother. It is not a responsibility that Curry has taken lightly. "It means somebody thinks that you're a great parent," Curry said. "And so I felt completely honored and ready to take on the role."

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Ayesha Curry has plenty of experience in front of the camera, but she's also ventured behind the scenes. In addition to producing her own TV shows, she and husband Steph Curry also produced the 2024 documentary "Sentenced." The film, which was picked up by Peacock, focused on the issue of illiteracy, looking at how generational poverty can be overcome by learning how to read.

The subject of literacy is an important one for the couple, and is one of the issues that they've addressed through their Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation. "'Sentenced' is a powerful project that we are honored to be a part of, driving necessary conversations on the importance of childhood literacy, a haunting issue that was only intensified as a result of the pandemic," the couple said in a joint statement, via The Hollywood Reporter.

Banishing illiteracy was also something that was very personal to Ayesha, tapping into her own fears as a mother. "And as a parent, like, the thought of not being able to provide something so simple as, like, the ability to read to my child is so upsetting," she said in an interview with NPR. "And so for me, I just would love to eradicate that."

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There's no surer sign that one has entered the pop culture consciousness than being name-dropped in a rap track. Such was the case for Ayesha Curry when she heard her name mentioned in "Race My Mind" by Toronto rapper Drake — and though Drake may cut into celebs he can't stand, that wasn't the case for Curry. As Us Weekly pointed out, the song is about a woman who's on the fence about being in a relationship. "Posted that pic you sent me, it wasn't recent enough," Drake rapped. "How I'm supposed to wife it? You not Ayesha enough."

When appearing on "Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen," Curry was asked what she thought about Drake's mention. "I think I was dumbfounded," she admitted. She also referenced that she and Drake both share roots in Toronto, and that the mention was hardly a diss. "That's like our family," she said of Drake and his producers, 40 and Monsune. "So I think I was appreciative that they, like, respect me so much that they feel that I'm a great wife."

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In May 2024, Ayesha Curry announced that she and husband Steph Curry had welcomed their fourth child — son Caius Chai. Prior to the birth, Ayesha told People that her pregnancy hadn't been all that easy, but had been improving. "I feel good. As the days go on, I feel a little better and better each day," Curry said. "I am lucky if I can get a whole meal down."

Along with the severe morning sickness she'd been experiencing, Curry also revealed that the medical description of her pregnancy had irked her. In an essay she wrote for her website, Sweet July, she remarked about being in her 30s and having what was described as a "geriatric pregnancy." She urged the medical community to come up with different terminology, given that an increasing number of women are waiting longer before having children. "Many women in their 30s and 40s are going through this for the first time, and being told you're 'old' feels alarming and wild," she pointed out. "I think the narrative needs to be shifted a little bit."

Meanwhile, Curry has also confirmed that she's officially out of the baby-making business. "Five [kids] sounds crazy!" she told E! News, recommending that her husband get a vasectomy — eventually. "I would tell him to wait though until he stops playing," she said, joking that a vasectomy might affect his game play. "The hand bone could be connected to the foot bone," she quipped. "I don't know!"