Anne Burrell's Cause of Death Ruled a Suicide 5 Weeks After Food Network Star Died at 55
Anne Burrell cause of death has been revealed five weeks after the celebrity chef died at 55.
Burrell died by suicide, PEOPLE can confirm. Her cause of death is specified as "acute intoxication due to the combined effects of diphenhydramine, ethanol, cetirizine, and amphetamine," and was determined by the New York City medical examiner's office. Diphenhydramine and cetirizine are antihistamines, ethanol is a compound found in alcohol and amphetamine is commonly used to treat ADHD.
Her family declined PEOPLE's request to comment.
Reps for the star announced Burrell's death in a release obtained by PEOPLE on Tuesday, June 17.
"Anne was a beloved wife, sister, daughter, stepmother, and friend — her smile lit up every room she entered," her family said in a statement.
The statement continued, "Anne's light radiated far beyond those she knew, touching millions across the world. Though she is no longer with us, her warmth, spirit, and boundless love remain eternal."
The Food Network star was 'discovered in the shower unconscious and unresponsive surrounded by approximately (100) assorted pills,' The New York Times reported Friday, June 20, citing an internal New York Police Department document viewed by the outlet.
A spokesperson for the NYPD told PEOPLE on June 18, the day after Burrell's death, that the Worst Cooks in America host was found 'unconscious and unresponsive' at the scene. EMS "responded and pronounced her deceased on scene," police said.
According to a 911 call report provided to PEOPLE by the New York City Fire Department, a person called in at 7:50 a.m. local time, concerned that she had suffered cardiac arrest.
A fan-favorite on the Food Network, Burrell was best known as the longtime host of Worst Cooks in America, where her passion for food and mentorship turned disastrous kitchen hopefuls into capable cooks.
Born on Sept. 21, 1969, in Cazenovia, New York, Burrell discovered her love for cooking early, inspired by her mother's home-cooked meals and television icon, Julia Child.
She studied English and Communication at Canisius College in Buffalo before pursuing a culinary career at the prestigious Culinary Institute of America, where she graduated in 1996. In the early 2000s, Burrell transitioned into teaching at the Institute of Culinary Education and eventually made her way to television.
Food Network audiences first met Burrell as a sous chef on Iron Chef America. Her charisma and culinary chops led to her own Emmy-nominated show, Secrets of a Restaurant Chef, which premiered in 2008 and ran for nine seasons.
From there, Burrell became Food Network staple, also appearing on Chef Wanted, Chopped, Food Network Star, and most recently, the competition series House of Knives, which just premiered in March 2025.
Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Burrell authored two cookbooks: 2011's Cook Like a Rock Star, which made her a New York Times bestseller, and Own Your Kitchen: Recipes to Inspire and Empower in 2013.
Burrell and husband Stuart Claxton met on Bumble in 2018 before getting married three years later on Oct. 16, 2021.
The night before she died, on June 16, Burrell closed out her Second City 'Improv for Actors' course with a final performance in Brooklyn.
'She was having the best night,' actress Jane Margolis, a member of Burrell's improv troupe, told PEOPLE in the July 7 issue. 'She'd come up with these one-liners out of the blue that were just hysterical. She really was so into it.'
She is survived by Claxton and his son, Javier, as well as her mother, Marlene, and sister, Jane, her children Isabella, Amelia and Nicolas, and her brother Ben.
If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health challenges, emotional distress, substance use problems, or just needs to talk, call or text 988, or chat at 988lifeline.org 24/7.
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Los Angeles Times
2 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
Liam Neeson takes aim at his rote thriller roles in the giddy, riotous 'The Naked Gun'
'The Naked Gun' is Liam Neeson's best career move since 'Schindler's List.' That 1993 Oscar-nominated performance put the Irish thespian on the A-list. His later pivot to the 2009 action-thriller 'Taken,' where he rescued his teen daughter from smugglers, crowned Neeson the King of the B's. Ever since, he's been skidding down the alphabet, saving even more daughters, wives, girlfriends, sons, grandsons and other people's families, as well as a train, a mine, a battleship, an airplane and a pub. Meanwhile, his own reputation has been slowly tortured to death. But comedy is reinvigorating. Especially a tough guy comedy that lets Neeson mock his lousy taste in roles. Directed by Akiva Schaffer, 'The Naked Gun' careens around, merrily smashing into things like a custom-engineered Liam Neeson vehicle. His rightness for the role is a marvelous coup, considering it's the fourth film in a four-decade-old franchise that's tightly bonded to another once-distinguished dramatic actor, Leslie Nielsen, who originated the character of Lt. Frank Drebin in the 1982 TV sitcom 'Police Squad!' and then shouldered it through three feature films. At Nielsen's funeral, the pallbearers carried his coffin to the 'Naked Gun' theme. His tombstone inscription is a fart joke. Neeson plays Frank's son, Frank Drebin Jr., who inherited his dad's job as a cocksure Los Angeles cop. Who is his mother? No clue. Schaffer, who wrote the script with Dan Gregor and Doug Mand, has correctly concluded that taking this premise seriously would insult our intelligence. This younger Drebin has mommy issues (he was breastfed until middle school) and wifey issues (he's a standard-issue widower). His father functions more like a guardian-angel-slash-gantlet. (Silver fox fun fact: Neeson is eleven years older than Nielsen was when he took on the role.) 'I want to be just like you, but at the same time completely different and original,' Neeson's Drebin prays before his dead pop's altar. Kneeling next to him at police headquarters, his colleagues Ed Hocken Jr. (Paul Walter Hauser) and Not Nordberg Jr.'s (Moses Jones) own predecessors, George Kennedy and O.J. Simpson. The latter eulogy receives all the reverence it's earned. That prayer for blessing, is, of course, Schaffer's, who seems to have to have studied the curveball punch lines of David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker — a.k.a. ZAZ, who broke into the mainstream with 'Airplane!' — as though each laugh was calculated by Archimedes. His sequel hits every touchstone in the terrific first movie: the opening melee, the motorized mayhem, the tech-glitch toilet humor, the climactic sporting event and the femme fatale Frank falls for in a loony love montage. (This one is Beth, played by Pamela Anderson.) It's even plotted cameos for Priscilla Presley and her stuffed beaver. Yet, each callback has been costumed enough not to feel like a parody of a parody. They're more like trusty gags that sidle in wearing Groucho Marx glasses. A good comedy like this one is hard to review. The English language doesn't have many natural ways to call something hilarious. ('Mirthful?' 'Jocular?' Only if I'm playing Scrabble.) Illustrating its skill with examples gives away the jokes, which is criminal when its humor hinges on visual and linguistic double-takes, as well as escalating pratfalls that, in the original, went on for half a dozen beats. (Schaffer stops at three or four.) The verbal wordplay runs all the way through the end credits that boast a set dresser, a set bureau and a set chiffarobe. But it starts with the star. Liam Neeson wasn't hired solely because his name sounds like saying 'Leslie Nielsen' with a mouth full of banana, but the similarity had to have gotten a giggle in the casting room. Here, he's added extra gravel to his voice. Neeson gets a chuckle just growling the word 'mittens.' Us film fans have stared at his hawkish mug for eons, but I can't remember ever before seeing him flash a huge, daffy grin. He can't look like he's having too much fun. The first rule of ZAZ-style comedy is that you can't ever appear like you're in on the joke, which Anderson edges close to once when she breaks into a scatting jazz number. That scene is salvaged by the rapt expression on Danny Huston's face. His bad guy, an evil billionaire named Richard Cane, genuinely loves it. Otherwise, Anderson holds her own, cooing her one-liners with the kittenish candor of Marilyn Monroe. The key idea remains that the 'Naked Gun' directs non-comedians to deliver their lines seriously. 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Chicago Tribune
2 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
Chicago pianist ‘grateful' to make music again after life-changing brain surgery
A hospital bed in Florida isn't Mark Burnell's typical performance venue. But this spring, with an electric keyboard in his lap and 14 holes drilled into his skull, the longtime Chicago musician struck up a melody on the old ivories. The tune was a time-honored, and fitting, classic from 'The Wizard of Oz': the Scarecrow's seminal hit, 'If I Only Had a Brain.' Standing bedside, Burnell's wife, Anne, sang along. 'I would not be just a nothin' my head all full of stuffin', my heart all full of pain,' she crooned. 'And perhaps I'll deserve you, and be even worthy of you, if I only had a brain.' Burnell, a pianist and singer who has gigged, directed and taught across Chicago since 1989, underwent brain surgery in April at a Mayo Clinic campus in Florida, after a year and a half spent managing monthly seizures. The procedure used innovative brain mapping techniques and even mid-surgery performances by Burnell himself to see through. But ultimately, the treatment proved successful at tempering Burnell's epilepsy, he and his surgical team say. Now, a few months into recovery, the Burnells on Thursday night will be staging their first large public concert since Burnell's surgery. Headed into the concert at the Gateway Lounge in Chicago's Copernicus Center in Jefferson Park, Burnell says he's eager to perform, especially with the newfound freedom that surgery has given him. 'I'm on the road to healing,' Burnell said, sitting down for an interview Monday alongside Anne at their Wicker Park home. 'I feel excited about playing music again, not afraid of seizing on the stage.' 'Play this keyboard but don't play anything easy, challenge yourself!' Burnell's case was a complex one, said Dr. William Tatum, an epileptologist with the Mayo Clinic Hospital in Florida who was part of Burnell's surgical team. It was also a long time coming. What brought the musician to Mayo Clinic was a head trauma dating back to the 1970s, an injury that left Burnell epileptic. By the time he came to Mayo Clinic, not only was Burnell drug-resistant to anti-seizure medication, but his seizures also derived from several areas of the brain, making treatment more challenging, Tatum said. The surgical team began with a technique called stereoelectroencephalography, or stereo EEG. The procedure involves placing electrodes deep into a patient's brain through small holes drilled in the skull, said Dr. David Sabsevitz, a clinical neuropsychologist with Mayo Clinic, also part of Burnell's surgical team. With stereo EEG, electrodes 'listen to brain activity,' which allows doctors to localize where exactly a patient's seizures are coming from, Sabsevitz said. In Burnell's case, stereo EEG provided his surgical team with the data they needed to figure out where to direct treatment. That was just the first step. Using the same electrodes they placed in Burnell for stereo EEG, the surgical team electrically stimulated his brain to determine where they could surgically intervene and where they couldn't, Sabsevitz said. That meant probing the areas of Burnell's brain deemed the source of his seizures and assessing — through stimulation — whether intervention would impact Burnell's abilities or functionality in any way. In real time, that entailed Burnell going through a series of tests, all while he was wide awake. For instance, the surgical team had Burnell repeat words or name famous faces while they stimulated different areas of his brain. If they saw any disruption, they knew to avoid or at least be extra careful with any intervention going forward. They also had Burnell play the piano. For about half the treatment, Burnell played different songs on a toy keyboard that he bought ahead of his surgery. (It was the only keyboard that would fit in his luggage, Burnell said.) 'If I Only Had a Brain' was one of a slate of tunes Burnell and Anne brought to Mayo Clinic. And if the electrodes weren't obstacle enough, their hospital setlist wasn't simple either. '(The doctors) said, 'Play this keyboard but don't play anything easy, challenge yourself,'' Burnell said. By having Burnell play piano, his surgical team could view how different aspects of musical processing were organized in his brain as to avoid damaging or disrupting those systems, Sabsevitz said. The surgical team mapped Burnell's cognitive functions using a tool that Sabsevitz developed called NeuroMapper, a tablet-based testing platform. Burnell didn't feel any pain inside his brain through the procedure, but that didn't make it any less scary, he said. The only reason he was willing to go through with the treatment was because he was out of options, he said. Once Burnell's surgical team had adequately mapped his brain, they turned to one last step: eradicating the root of his seizures. Through a process called radiofrequency ablation, Burnell's team heated the electrodes in his brain to ablate and destroy small portions of his brain tissue causing him to seize. Burnell stayed awake for the ablation too. He also reprised his repertoire on his travel keyboard, with Anne accompanying him, as another active test of the treatment's effect on his livelihood. Since April, Burnell has had a few seizures, but not nearly as many as before, he said. Though not necessarily free of seizures, Burnell's treatment signified 'the best possible outcome that we could have,' Tatum said. 'It's really awesome and so satisfying, as an epilepsy doctor, so to see somebody as complex as Mark undergo the entire deal of everything that can be done and yet have a good outcome. … He's one that we will always remember,' Tatum said. To Sabsevitz, Burnell's case highlighted the need to think outside the box, he said. Radiofrequency ablation, especially, is a relatively new and rare procedure in the United States. The procedure has been in use at Mayo Clinic for only about a year. Last summer, a young woman from Georgia became the first pediatric patient in the U.S. to undergo similar treatment, Fox News reported in April. She was also treated at Mayo Clinic Florida. For Burnell, his musicality made his case all the more unique, Sabsevitz said. 'Not only did we map him playing his piano and singing with his wife … we were creating lesions in real time and watching to see what it did to his brain and these functions,' Sabsevitz said. An old friend with connections to Mayo Clinic Burnell, 69, a Pennsylvania native, has played the piano since age 8. He received a bachelor's and master's of fine arts from Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh before moving to Chicago 36 years ago. He and Anne first crossed paths in 1993. The duo met performing in different bands on one of those cocktail/dinner cruise ships that park at Navy Pier. She sang. He played the piano. They had their first date that night. 'The first thing I heard (Anne) sing was 'A Sunday Kind of Love,'' Burnell recalled. 'That ended up being our first dance (at our wedding).' The pair not only married, but have made music together and continue to perform, both as a duo and individually. They consider themselves crossover artists, delving into jazz, Broadway, pop and gospel, the Burnells say. To date, they have released several albums together. 'The two loves of my life are music and (Anne),' Burnell said. When Burnell had a seizure for the first time, Anne didn't know he had previously suffered from a traumatic brain injury. In 1974, Burnell took a bad fall while a freshman at Carnegie Mellon. He recalled falling backward into grass, where his head landed on a manhole cover. The fall put Burnell into a coma for a week. He recovered, missing only a couple of weeks of school. As the years went on, Burnell began to forget about the injury until 23 years ago when a seizure sent him to the hospital, he said. While the seizure only had Burnell out of commission for a couple days, he was prescribed anti-seizure medication and went back to performing. Then, four years later, Anne came home to Burnell collapsed on the floor. He again returned to the hospital, where he was placed in a medically induced coma for 11 days to stop him from seizing. Afterward, the seizures again seemed to dissipate. Years passed with no relapse, until a couple years ago, when Burnell began having moments where he would 'check out' for a few seconds, whether that meant he'd stop talking or couldn't remember what he was playing on the piano. For a year and a half, Burnell was having seven to eight seizures a month. In January, that doubled. Concerned, Burnell and Anne confided in a friend they used to perform with in Chicago. To their surprise, that friend turned to the Burnells and replied, 'I got a guy.' It turned out that their friend had a connection to the Mayo Clinic, which offers the highest level of epilepsy diagnosis and care, as rated by the National Association of Epilepsy Centers. One referral later, Burnell was at the health system's Florida campus by February. He spent days getting tested as doctors charted a path forward. By April, he was due for surgery. When Burnell got home from Mayo Clinic, he beelined for his piano. 'We got off the plane and the first thing I wanted to know was do I remember the songs?' he said. He was pleasantly surprised to find most of the music he had committed to memory remained at his fingertips. Thursday's performance at the Copernicus Center will be an homage to 'Baby Boomer Songwriters.' Think James Taylor, Paul Simon, Carole King — but with a jazzed-up flair. Asked how they were feeling just a few days out from the concert, Burnell smiled. 'We've done a lot of homework,' Anne said. 'Yeah, we've practiced,' Burnell added. 'We feel like we're ready.' Above all, Burnell says he just feels 'so grateful' that he can make music again. 'I've never done any other kind of work,' he said. 'If that would have been taken away from me, it would have been like taking my life away from me. But here, now I have music, and I have Anne.' The Burnells' show at the Copernicus Center is scheduled to start at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, with doors opening at 6:30. Tickets are available at
Time Magazine
2 hours ago
- Time Magazine
Erling Haaland Is Already Outscoring Soccer's Greats
Two of the most valuable feet on the planet are burning. It's a stifling mid-June afternoon and Erling Haaland, the superstar Manchester City striker from Norway who looks like Thor but sometimes celebrates goals by meditating in the lotus pose, is walking on the piping hot sand in Boca Raton, Fla. The heat is so intense that I start skittering to the wet sand in desperate need of relief, but Haaland, who has insisted on removing his sandals, simply saunters to a cooler stretch of seashore. 'No pain,' he says, flashing a smile. Manchester City has landed in the U.S. for the FIFA Club World Cup and set up base camp at an oceanfront Boca hotel. Haaland's tired from an extended training session that morning, but he's still in a jovial mood—Man City won its opening game in Philadelphia the day before. Minutes before our walk on the beach, Haaland had spotted team photographer Tom Flathers in the hotel lobby with three stitches above his right eyebrow from when a ball launched by Man City forward Omar Marmoush struck him during a practice session a few days earlier. 'If that was me,' says Haaland, 'he would have 10.' Or 10,000. The speed of Haaland's shots, and hulking 6-ft. 4-in. body, have created a goal-scoring machine the likes of which the world has never seen. Haaland holds the record for most goals in an English Premier League season, won the Golden Boot for most goals in the Premier League two years in a row, scored a hat trick (three goals) in his European Champions League debut—on three shots—and is the only player besides Lionel Messi to score five goals in a Champions League knockout game. He once scored nine goals—yes, nine—in an under-20 competition for Norway. On June 26, during Manchester City's 5-2 victory over Juventus in the Club World Cup—the 370th game of Haaland's professional and national-team career—he scored his 300th goal. It took Kylian Mbappé 409 games, Messi 418, and Cristiano Ronaldo 554 to reach this majestic milestone. Haaland turned 25 on July 21. In soccer, tradition holds that when players score a hat trick, they receive a match ball, signed by their teammates, as a keepsake. Haaland's hat tricks are so routine that last August, after he notched another one for Man City, a teammate scrawled 'f-ck off' on the memento. 'He's a human exclamation point,' says Roger Bennett, founder and CEO of the Men in Blazers Media Network, the soccer-podcast company. 'A man who can deliver just cunning, clinical acts of violence repeatedly, consistently, remorselessly with the world watching.' Haaland signed on with Manchester City from Germany's Borussia Dortmund in 2022, scored three hat tricks early in the season, and helped Man City become just the second English team in history to win the treble (championships in the Premier League, the FA Cup—an annual English domestic club knockout competition— and the Champions League, the annual event crowning Europe's top club). 'I had not seen anyone arrive in the elite league in the world and just utterly bend it to his will,' says Bennett. Man City won Premier League titles in Haaland's first two seasons, in 2023 and 2024, which also gave the Sky Blues a record four consecutive season championships. But inconsistency and injuries—to Haaland and others—caused the team to slip to third place in 2025 and suffer its earliest Champions League exit in a dozen years. So starting on Aug. 16, when Man City opens its 2025–2026 campaign against Wolverhampton Wanderers, Haaland and his mates will seek to reclaim Premier League supremacy while also competing for another Champions League title. What's more, this fall Haaland will lead Norway into the latter stages of World Cup qualifying. He expects to return to North America next summer for his country's first World Cup appearance in nearly three decades. So Haaland has a momentous 12 months ahead of him. With more Man City success, and a shine on the World Cup stage, he will succeed Messi, 38, and Ronaldo, 40, as the face of the world's most popular sport. His outings already double as pilgrimages. At the game in Philly, Americans from New Hampshire, Colorado, Michigan, and elsewhere turned out in Haaland jerseys. A 9-year-old boy from New Jersey told me he talks about Haaland so much that his 4-month-old brother has started saying, 'Errrrrrr.' Kenny Coleman, 10, traveled with his parents from Sydney to see his favorite player: Coleman wraps the back of his flowing blond hair in a bun, just like Haaland, and at the Man City party at an Irish bar the night before the game, the fans started shouting 'Baby Erling!' at him. Walking along the water, all feet safely clear of scorching grains, I show Haaland a cell-phone snapshot of Baby Erling. Haaland's aware of the absurdity. Some soccer-loving kid from a farming community in Norway—not Argentina or England or Spain or Brazil or some other more populous football power—is now inspiring the world over. 'Never in a million years would I think a guy from Australia would walk in the USA and try to look like me,' Haaland says. 'No.' In Bryne, Haaland's agricultural hometown of some 13,000 in southwest Norway, visitors can go on the 'Haaland safari.' For 750 kroner, or about 75 bucks, a guide will show you the giant mural of Haaland, in a Dortmund shirt, on the side of an old dairy, and another painting of Haaland in a Man City kit, in the lotus pose. You can visit the timeworn stadium of his first club team, Bryne FK, where for years fans could pull up in tractors to watch the action. Bryne FK awards the stars of its matches prizes like cartons of eggs, a half-ton of carrots, and cauliflower. Cruise ships docking in Stavanger, the coastal city about a 30-minute train ride to the north, send tourists down to Bryne. The locals are betting on a boost to the local economy. 'I hope in the future,' says Frode Hagerup, a Bryne FK board member, 'Erling takes us from two hotels to three hotels.' If anyone reared in Bryne was going to put the town on the map, it was going to be Haaland. His father Alfie played for Manchester City and two other Premier League clubs: Erling was actually born in England, before Alfie moved back to Bryne with his family in 2004, following his retirement from professional soccer. Erling's mother Gry Marita Braut was a Norwegian youth national heptathlon champion. His great-uncle, pig and potato farmer Gabriel Hoyland, is the greatest player in Bryne FK history. 'I remember when I scored one goal, it was such a good feeling in me that I was like, 'I want to become an expert on this,'' says Haaland. 'Get this feeling again and again.' Though Haaland's youth coach Alf Ingve Bernsten gave players the weekends off, Haaland and his buddies would spend hours on Saturdays and Sundays playing on their own at Bryne's indoor facility. 'It was very important that they learn by themselves,' says Bernsten. 'If I was a coach that stood on the side and yelled at him, 'Now you have to go there, left, right,' he will only react after my shouting. The whole process will collapse.' At just 15, Haaland suited up for Bryne FK in the Norwegian pro league. But he hadn't grown into his current frame. In 16 games, he failed to score against older, stronger players. 'I just felt that everyone was watching me, and if I didn't play good, it was the end of the world,' says Haaland. Playing in Norway as a teen was more stressful than performing before millions at Man City. 'It shouldn't be like that,' he says. 'But in the end, everything is in your head.' Despite Haaland's failure to produce for Bryne, a higher-division Norwegian club, Molde FK, saw his potential. Alfie also thought moving away from home, at 16, would help his son mature. 'That was part of the education,' says Alfie. Haaland recalls thinking, ''F-ck, I'm alone now. I actually have to go buy groceries. I have to clean my clothes,' which I had never done before. So I remember calling my sister asking, 'OK, how do I do this?'' Haaland says his mother, a teacher, was upset that he dropped out of school to pursue soccer. 'She was so mad,' he says. 'I've never been that scared. That's proper fear.' (When asked if she is still upset, Haaland replies, 'I think she's all right now.') He got into meditation, a practice he continues to this day, while in Molde, and started celebrating goals with the lotus pose. But in his first 26 appearances for Molde, Haaland scored just four times. And in the week leading up to a July 2018 game against first-place Brann, Haaland performed terribly in practice. 'I was soooo bad,' he says. Molde's manager, Norwegian legend Ole Gunnar Solskjaer—whose goal off a David Beckham corner kick clinched the treble for Manchester United in 1999—had used Haaland as a substitute the previous three fixtures. So Haaland was surprised when he was picked to start. 'I'm like, 'F-ck, I don't know what I've done in training this week, because I didn't do anything good. But OK, let's have it.'' Haaland, still just 17, scored four goals in the first 21 minutes of the game. 'It's a life-changing moment,' he says. 'From there, it was keep going and attacking whatever it is to attack.' Haaland wasn't long for Norway. After two seasons in Molde, he moved to Austria to play for Red Bull Salzburg. It took some time for him to get acclimated: Not only was it his first time living abroad, he appeared in just two games for Salzburg in the first half of 2019. 'You miss speaking Norwegian, you miss your family, you miss your friends,' says Haaland. 'The trainer would just scream to me in German, and I was like, 'I don't understand you.' I was like, 'What am I doing here?'' That offseason, however, Haaland had his nine-goal outburst against Honduras and welcomed the arrival of a new manager—American Jesse Marsch, currently the head coach of Canada, who has a reputation as an upbeat, player-friendly personality. Haaland went on an absolute tear, scoring 11 goals in seven games—including a pair of hat tricks—before making his Champions League debut in September 2019 against Genk, the Belgian side. The night before that game, he drove around Salzburg, listening to the Champions League anthem to hype himself up. He scored in the first two minutes and notched three first-half goals in a 6-2 rout. 'That's when things really kind of started to explode in my life,' says Haaland. By that point, Solskjaer had taken over Manchester United, and the club showed interest. 'When a coach you had before wants you, of course you listen,' says Haaland. But in December 2019, Haaland signed on with Dortmund, a club known for cultivating young talent. He again took a step up in competition, and in Germany he continued to produce at a prolific pace, scoring 86 goals in 89 games. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he let his hair grow out and started wrapping it in his now signature bun. Why? 'Because my father didn't want me to do it,' he says. 'But if you do it, you have to perform. You cannot be with the bun and don't perform.' Haaland's Dortmund contract contained a release clause that kicked in after the 2022 season. Real Madrid and others came calling. He lost sleep over his decision. Haaland used to wear a Man City kit to youth practices in Norway. He donned a Man City shirt that said dad as a toddler. But even more than sentiment, Man City's need for a pure striker up front appealed to Haaland, who signed a five-year deal with the team. 'I felt that this was the last missing piece in the puzzle,' says Haaland. 'Even though they did so well, I still felt I was so wanted here. And this also gave me kind of a boost and a confidence to come in and just smash everything.' He's done just that. In March, Haaland placed a penalty shot in the right side of the net against Brighton, making him the first player in Premier League history to reach 100 goal contributions (84 goals and 16 assists) in under 100 games. 'Er-ling!' the Etihad Stadium announcer cried out. 'Haa-land!' the crowd of almost 53,000 responded. 'It's an absolute dream to be playing alongside him,' says Man City winger Savinho, from Brazil. Initially, there were concerns. 'It was always a culture where no one was bigger than the club,' says Man City defender Nathan Ake, of the Netherlands, who joined in 2020. 'It is a proper team. And when you make statement signings like that, maybe people think, 'Is the dynamic going to change?'' Strikers, by nature, must behave selfishly. 'The ball has to be on your mind,' says Manchester City CEO Ferran Soriano, who was vice chairman and CEO of Barcelona during Messi's days in La Liga. Soriano compares Haaland with Ronaldo. 'You can see a teammate scoring a goal, and him not celebrating,' Soriano says of Ronaldo. 'Because he thinks, 'I should have scored.' And it's not that he's a bad person. But that's the mentality. Erling is different. Erling scores a lot of goals, but he also enjoys when other teammates do it. That is impressive.' To the delight of Man City players, Haaland can hold his own in trash-talking sessions. 'We have an interesting kind of banter at the training ground, where we just hammer each other,' says Ake. 'He fit in with that straightaway.' For Ake and others, Haaland's oddball biohacking habits serve as fodder. He cherishes ice baths. He wears glasses that filter out blue light, which can disrupt sleep, before bed. He sometimes eats cow heart. 'For me, to eat as natural and as clean as possible is an important thing,' Haaland says. He gets it from a farm near his home in England. Haaland has a cow-heart guy. Man City's marketing arm at first fretted about Haaland's reputation for giving churlish interviews. While with Dortmund, he often offered uninterested one- or two-word answers to reporters' questions. A YouTube compilation of Haaland media interactions, 'Erling Haaland wasn't made for interviews'—#cringe is in the subtitle—has 2 million views. Critics like Piers Morgan called him arrogant. 'I'd say he isn't programmed for basic manners,' Morgan wrote on Twitter in 2020. Haaland's more engaging with the press these days. 'Yes, I'm more older and mature, that's for sure,' says Haaland, who welcomed his first child in December. But he also blames the media for some of his less-than-effusive responses. 'You would ask, 'How was the weather today?' I would answer, 'It's good,'' he says. 'You get what you ask for. That was my whole point of all of this. You ask stupid questions, you will get a stupid answer back.' At the risk of sounding stupid, I ask Haaland if he's the best player in the world right now. 'No,' he says. 'I'm one of them.' Messi and Ronaldo have reigned atop global soccer for nearly two decades. Haaland can't imagine himself—or his modern-day colleagues—reaching their rarefied air. 'Their records, no one is ever going to take them,' he says. 'Not even me.' Bitter supporters of rival Manchester United—still the second most valuable soccer club in the world, according to Forbes—chalk up Man City's success to economics. According to many Man U fans, ever since Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family and vice president of the United Arab Emirates, bought City in 2008, his oil wealth has purchased players and championships. Meanwhile Man U's owners, the Glazer family of the U.S., have burdened the club with debts and losing: Man U hasn't won the Premiership in a dozen years. And, these fans argue, Haaland's overrated. 'He's a big galoot,' says United supporter Christine Maun, 73, while watching a midweek Man U game in a Manchester pub in March. 'If he wasn't playing for City, he'd never score what he scores. He's not a classy player. Just stands there.' That's a common knock on Haaland: he's a so-called tap-in merchant, a player who converts easy goals while his teammates do the dribbling and passing. Prompted to respond to that label, Haaland laughs. 'What's the most difficult thing in football?' Haaland asks, rhetorically. 'If you're a tap-in merchant, that means you're scoring a lot of goals, no? There you kind of have the answer. I like it if people call me a tap-in merchant. I love it. That means you're doing something right. That a lot of other people can't.' Plus, it takes skill and athleticism to position yourself to convert those chances. 'His football IQ is off the charts,' says former Premier League midfielder Robbie Earle, now an analyst for NBC Sports. 'He has to think ahead. He's seeing pictures before most other players see them on the pitch. It's almost like a mathematician who can work out the algorithm and the conundrum quicker than anybody else.' It has all added up to Haaland's signing a mammoth 9½-year contract in January. Haaland is making a commitment to Man City even though the club has been charged with breaches of financial regulations, from the 2009–2010 to 2017–2018 seasons, that could result in fines, the stripping of championships, or even expulsion from the Premier League. Man City has denied the charges and is awaiting a verdict by an independent commission. 'I spoke with the bosses, and in the end, I believe them,' says Haaland. 'It's such a tricky situation for me to even sit there and speak about, because I wasn't really involved in it. So I think the club knows what they're doing. They will sort it out.' The contract is the longest in Premier League history. 'This feels really normal for me to do,' says Haaland about the signing. 'They have so much trust in me. Got the good feeling inside my body.' Haaland shouldn't be strolling along the Atlantic Ocean right now. Not because his fair skin is so exposed to the fiery Florida sun (though there's that). No, he should be on vacation, recuperating from the grind of this past season—where he missed six weeks with an ankle injury—and resting his body for the next one, which could see Haaland playing upwards of 70 games between the Premier League, cup competitions, World Cup qualifying, and the World Cup, which kicks off next June 11 in Mexico City. But the soccer calendar, always eager to cash in on the popularity of players like Haaland, called for a more expansive Club World Cup this offseason. 'Every footballer is waiting the whole year for holidays,' says Haaland, as a breeze drifts in off the ocean. 'But as well, the people that have holidays now, they would love to be here.' He did depart the U.S. earlier than expected: on June 30, Saudi club Al Hilal upset Manchester City 4-3 in the Round of 16 (Haaland scored a second-half equalizer in that game, in addition to two other goals in earlier ones). It's been that sort of year for Man City. Haaland still finished second in goals per match in the Premier League, behind Liverpool's Mohamed Salah. But rocky moments stood out. In September, a camera caught Haaland telling Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta to 'stay humble' after Man City scored late to draw with the Gunners, 2-2. At one point in the match, he also shouted, 'Who the f-ck are you?' at Arsenal rookie Myles Lewis-Skelly. This all caused a row. So during the rematch in London in February, Arsenal fans could be heard singing 'stay humble' during Arsenal's 5-1 annihilation of the road team. They added a derogatory word. When Lewis-Skelly scored a goal in the second half, he mimicked Haaland's lotus celebration. Haaland has no 'stay humble' regrets. 'I think it's an important phrase, which a lot of people should use, including myself,' he says. 'It's one of the most important things, as individuals, to do.' He takes the chants in stride. 'They won the game 5-1,' says Haaland. 'So yeah, they got me.' And Lewis-Skelly's not the first person to send up Haaland's ritual: Brazilian superstar Neymar did the same thing after scoring for Paris Saint-Germain against Dortmund in a 2020 Champions League game. 'If he wanted to use that moment to mock me, that's fair enough for him,' says Haaland. 'Whatever he wants to do, he can do.' In May, Manchester City still had an opportunity to finish off a disappointing campaign with a trophy, in the FA Cup final at Wembley Stadium. But Crystal Palace won 1-0. Soccer pundits, including English legend Wayne Rooney, knocked Haaland for declining to take a penalty shot before the half. Instead, Haaland gave the ball to Marmoush, who joined Man City from Eintracht Frankfurt, of the Bundesliga, in January. The Crystal Palace keeper, Dean Henderson, stopped Marmoush's attempt. 'Erling Haaland is a world-class forward, but when we're talking about Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, there is no way they are giving that ball away,' Rooney told BBC One. Haaland doesn't dispute Rooney's comments. 'I shouldn't have given it to a new player,' he says. 'So all the responsibility is on me. I put him in this situation. I had a good feeling on him. But I should have taken it myself.' Man City manager Pep Guardiola, one of the world's most respected football minds having won a dozen league titles in Spain, Germany, and England over 16 seasons, has named Haaland to a four-person leadership council for the team next season. He's the youngest member of the group by more than three years. 'I'm quite calm in my head,' Haaland says. 'That's a good thing to bring to others as well, even when the situation can be a bit wild.' He's already put last season behind him. 'I almost forgot it until you started speaking about it,' says Haaland. 'I cannot keep on thinking about last season. That last season was not good enough, this or that. That's the best part of football. There's always something new that's coming. You have to think about what is coming next and live in the present moment.' Norway, meanwhile, has won all four of its World Cup qualifying matches so far. I ask Haaland if he thinks the U.S., which as one of the host countries automatically qualifies for the 2026 World Cup, can win it. Haaland turns the tables, asking me who has a better chance to win, the U.S. or Norway. 'You don't have to answer it,' he says. 'But Norway will never win the World Cup.' The nation last appeared in the event in 1998. 'If we would qualify for the World Cup, it would be like another big nation winning it,' Haaland says. 'It would be the biggest party ever. Scenes in Oslo would be incredible.' He's a realist. And a bit of a diplomat. 'I don't want to be that guy that says the USA is never going to win the World Cup, then they actually win it,' says Haaland, through a hint of laughter. 'So there's a 1% chance they're going to do it. Norway has a 0.5.' Haaland's growing fond of the U.S. The previous day, during the second half of Man City's 2-0 victory over Moroccan side Wydad AC in Philadelphia, his entrance onto the pitch provided the game's loudest moment. 'I didn't know I was famous in the U.S.,' says Haaland. 'Everyone knows who I am.' He's watched Yellowstone and wouldn't mind exploring Montana. 'Get what is the guy, Costner, to drive me around,' he says, laughing. While in the passenger seat of a rental car later in the day—he asks the driver to pull over until he hooks up his Bluetooth to play thump-thump dance music—Haaland spots one of the oversize American pickup trucks that he admires. 'Look at that,' he says. 'That's a f-cking car. I'm going to go out and ask for a photo with it.' He was less impressed with a Cybertruck rumbling around South Florida. 'It's so weird,' he says. All the stoplights reminded him that Bryne has none. He won't even rule out a move to Major League Soccer in the U.S., à la Messi and Beckham, after his Man City deal is done. 'You never know what the future is going to bring,' says Haaland. 'What Messi is doing now is incredible. Also what Beckham did, it's amazing.' As our beach time concludes, I ask Haaland what crosses his mind as he looks out at the ocean. 'Freedom,' he says. 'If you drive with a boat straight out, you're all alone. I feel that is freedom. I also feel peace. Even though there's not peace in the world.' So why not take a boat out there while he's in town? 'I will do it on the holidays,' he says. 'Find my inner peace.' In the meantime, there's always lotus pose on the pitch.
