Bobby Flay Slid into Kristin Cavallari’s DMs and She Rejected Him Before She Realized It Was a Platonic Message

Kristin Cavallari nearly shut down plans with Bobby Flay because of some online miscommunication.

The celebrity chef and the Laguna Beach alum discussed being single, and an awkward DM exchange, on the Oct. 29 episode of her podcast, Let’s Be Honest.  

“You are fairly recently single,” said Cavallari, 37. Flay, 59, replied, “Am I?”

“That’s what I hear!” she answered. He jokingly responded, “That’s what People Magazine is reporting.”

PEOPLE was first to report his split from writer Christina Pérez in June. Cavallari had her own breakup in September after dating TikToker​​ Mark Estes for seven months.

The Bobby’s Triple Threat host, who called his ex-girlfriend “the loveliest person in the world,” broke down his current dating dilemma. “If I wanted to start dating again, what am I going to do? I don’t want to go on the apps,” he said, explaining that he wants to avoid dating apps “because then it becomes a public thing.”

“I’m a very private person with my private life. Other people like to talk about my private life, I don’t like to talk about it because the rest of my life is so public, because I’ve been on television basically my entire adult life,” said Flay, whose first-ever Food Network series Grillin’ & Chillin’ premiered in 1996. “So I like keeping as much as I can of my private life to myself.”

Plus, he said, virtual dating takes out the chivalrous parts of dating. “For me, I’m so old-school when it comes to this stuff. My father taught me to be a gentleman and to do things the right way and that there’s a proper process to go about it,” said Flay.

“Would you ever slide into the DMs? Or have you ever?” Cavallari asked.

“I have but never in a way that would be like — actually, I want to talk to you about this,” Flay interrupted himself. “You and I had a situation where I was coming to Nashville for literally one day for a meeting and I was like, ‘Who do I know in Nashville?’” 

“I DMed you and I said to you — now, I know what words I used specifically because you reminded me — ‘I’m going to be in Nashville for one night, can I take you to dinner?’ And you literally said something to me like, ‘I’m already dating somebody,’” he recalled with a laugh.

“Or it was like, ‘I’m over dating right now,’” said Cavallari.

“No you said, ‘I literally started seeing somebody!’” Flay protested. “And I said, ‘I just want to go to dinner with you.’”

“It was like foot in mouth,” Cavallari laughed, explaining that they went to dinner and “had the best time.”

The pair spent some time discussing how Flay could’ve better avoided the DM mixup. “The ‘take you to dinner’ feels like a date,” said Cavallari. But she admitted a mistake, too. “There’s a fair argument that I shouldn’t just assume that you wanted to take me on a date,” she laughed.

Later in the episode, the pair joked that they went to Cavallari’s go-to restaurant for dates, Husk. “This isn’t a date, Bobby, but I’m taking you to my date spot!” she laughed.

“You are a very good eater,” Flay complimented. “I noticed when we went to dinner.”

“I like to eat, people don’t think that about me,” she said.

“The stereotypical hot girl meal is salad, which is crazy,” Flay joked and added that Cavallari instead ordered fried pig ears.

“I’m an adventurous eater, I’ll try just about anything,” she replied.

Let’s Be Honest is available on all podcast platforms.