EXCLUSIVE REVEALED: The secret rendezvous Food Network star Anne Burrell planned with the Green Lady of Brooklyn after they took chef's last selfie together

Daily Mail​

8 hours ago

Food Network star Anne Burrell fulfilled a long-held wish and was 'very happy' just days before she died, according to the cult star of her final Instagram photo.
Burrell left such an impression when she met her idol, the 'Green Lady of Brooklyn', she was invited to visit her famed and coveted garden.
The Green Lady Elizabeth Sweetheart told DailyMail.com how the celebrity chef, who was tragically found dead in her Brooklyn apartment on Tuesday morning, spotted her on the street and excitedly rushed over to her.
The 84-year-old social media star, who lives with husband Robert Rosenthal close to Burrell in upmarket Carroll Gardens, exclusively told DailyMail.com: 'She ran up to me, gave me a hug, and took a selfie.
'I don't know her; I meet a lot of people.
'But I am the last photo on her Instagram. She [tagged] the photo of me and her to my Instagram, so then I got all the messages.
'I know she has passed. I posted a message afterwards for her family on Instagram.
'She said she had been wanting to meet me for so long, and she finally did, so she was very happy.'
The chef endeared herself to the older woman, so much so that the food influencer sent her an invitation to her house to explore her fig garden.
Sweetheart, 84, said Burrell caught up to her after spotting her on the street and told her she had been 'wanting to meet me for so long, and she finally did, so she was very happy'
In an Instagram message, she wrote to her: 'I would like to invite you to my garden and pick figs when they are ready, usually beginning to ripen in September, and come and visit the garden on a sunny day anyway.'
Though she never made it to Sweetheart's famed garden, Burrell shared with fans just five days before her death, at age 55, that she had fulfilled her dream, in what would become her final Instagram post.
In an excited update on June 12, Burrell shared a selfie with the cult star and wrote: 'I ran into (the Green Lady of Brooklyn) in my neighborhood today!'
'I'm not going to lie – I have been keeping an eye out for her.
'I may or may not have followed her down the street for a minute. She is just lovely,' Burrell added.
After news of Burrell's death broke, Sweetheart, who has garnered a cult internet following over her decades-long dedication to all things green, wrote a sweet message to her.
She wrote: 'Hi Anne, you are such a lovely person just to meet and not knowing. I just love you and so sorry but come to my garden and visit with all your beauty and love and I will be waiting for you.'
Sweetheart did not reveal to DailyMail.com what the pair talked about – and said she has not managed to speak to the star's family.
Mystery still shrouds the sudden death of the beloved TV chef, who was found 'unconscious and unresponsive' on the shower floor by her husband of four years, Stuart Claxton, 53. Claxton and Burrell had raised a 20-year-old son, Javier, from a previous marriage.
A 911 call was made and law enforcement responded around 7.50am on June 17. The chef was pronounced dead at the scene.
The New York Fire Department responded to a call for cardiac arrest, but the exact cause of Burrell's death remains under investigation by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
Law enforcement sources told TMZ a large quantity of 'unknown pills' was found near where she died.
The detective investigating Burrell's case was not immediately available for an update on her case.
Back in April, Burrell told DailyMail.com of her marital bliss with Claxton, who she wed in 2021 after meeting on the Bumble dating app in 2018.
'October will be four years,' she said.
'It seems like it's been four minutes. I don't know if it's a honeymoon [phase], but I feel like it's settled into married life days which I really enjoy.'
The Fire Department responded to a call for cardiac arrest at Burrell's home, but her cause of death remains under investigation. Law enforcement sources told TMZ a large quantity of 'unknown pills' were found near where she died
It comes as moving tributes have flooded in for host of the Worst Cooks in America, who was said by one friend to have been privately battling issues in the years before her death.
Duff Goldman, whose Baltimore bakery Charm City Cakes was featured on the Food Network, shared an online tribute to Burrell.
'I've written and re-written this post so many times in the past 24 hours and I just don't know what to say,' he posted on Instagram alongside a photo of him with her.
'Anne and I became friends in probably 2006. She was going through some stuff, and I had heard that she was feeling it so on a trip to NYC from Baltimore I had made her a cake that said, "Don't let the b******s win".
'She never did,' he shared, without revealing specifics about what had caused her private pain.
In 2006, Burrell's media career was on the rise - she had made her TV debut the previous year as a sous chef on Iron Chef America, working under Mario Batali, and was two years away from getting her own show Secrets of a Restaurant Chef.
However, Goldman has now revealed that even while she publicly began to blossom as a TV personality, she was battling personal issues behind the scenes.
'We had a complex relationship, and I remember the last conversation we had before our paths drifted was a pretty feisty debate about the merits of catfish. I believe the words "trash fish," "tastes like mud," and "cake boy" were used, haha,' he shared.
'Anne and I always had a spirited and somewhat acerbic back and forth. I really never knew why our paths drifted but I always hoped that wherever she was, Anne was doing well and was finding some happiness.'
While he was attending a New York City gala 'a year or two ago' with his wife Johnna Colbry and their daughter Josephine, four, Goldman saw Burrell again.
Goldman explained that he 'took Josephine out to the lobby to give her a break from sitting at a table listening to speeches. We were playing with the marble columns and as we rounded one, we saw Anne.'
He recalled: 'Now, at this point we hadn't spoken in years, and I won't go into what we talked about, but I will say that that conversation left my heart lifted and full of light, for it truly seemed to me that Anne really had found a measure of happiness and love.'