‘Co-ordinated attack’: Pete Evans opens up about cancellation following ‘neo-Nazi’ controversy

Former My Kitchen Rules celebrity chef Pete Evans has spoken up about the “neo-Nazi” controversy that saw his books pulled from shelves.

Former My Kitchen Rules celebrity chef Pete Evans has spoken up about the “neo-Nazi” controversy that saw his books pulled from shelves of major retailers, branding the incident a “co-ordinated attack”.

Evans, a prominent sceptic of Covid vaccines and masks, was dropped from his hosting role on the popular Seven reality cooking show in May 2020 over his outspoken views, and in November that year he was engulfed in further controversy after posting a cartoon on Instagram featuring a Nazi “black sun” symbol.

The image, showing a caterpillar wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat speaking to a butterfly with the black sun on its wing, was quickly deleted with Evans saying he was unaware of the symbol’s meaning.

But the ensuing outcry saw major retailers including Woolworths, Kmart and Target remove his books, while other businesses including publisher Pan Macmillan and kitchenware brand Baccarat also cut ties with Evans.

“It was a coordinated attack, it wasn’t just f**king out of the blue,” Evans told the Secrets of the Underworld podcast earlier this month.

“Within the space of 24 hours, the 15 business partners I was involved with all pretty much publicly denounced me. For that to happen it has to be a co-ordinated effort from some party. I don’t know who or what, but it wasn’t like, ‘Pete f**ked up’, it was like, ‘Pete f**ked up, let’s put the attack dogs onto this.’”

Evans suggested the cancellation was intended “to dissuade anybody else that may want to stand up against the vaccine or this that and the other thing”.

“This is what we can do to somebody, so be good boys and girls, just go along with the agenda, don’t stick your head up because we will financially destroy you,’” he said.

Pete Evans on the Secrets of the Underworld podcast. Picture: Instagram

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Evans said he did share the Nazi symbol but it was “unbeknownst to me”.

“I just saw the Donald Trump hat and thought it was funny, I had no idea it was a f**king neo-Nazi sign,” he said.

“It was like, ‘Got him! We’ve been waiting for this moment. Now we can bring out the whole neo-Nazi, white supremacist [thing]. We’ve got him now. We’re going to use this and pressure all his business partners, that you cannot be associated with this man anymore.’”

Evans stressed that “just for the record, I’m not a neo-Nazi, never have been, never will be, I love all cultures, all cuisines, I respect everybody, every race”.

“It’s so ridiculous people fell for that … that anybody could ever consider that I would be a neo-Nazi, it’s beyond ridiculous,” he said.

“I respect their decision. They’re running a business, they want to protect their brand, their integrity. For me it was just like, sweet, cool, can I adapt to losing all that income, can I adapt to being known as a neo-Nazi by the media?”

Evans also spoke about the furore surrounding his controversial June 2020 interview with Nine’s 60 Minutes, which was criticised at the time for airing his “dangerous” comments downplaying the Covid pandemic.

“When Covid happened I had a call from 60 Minutes because they wanted to do an episode about Covid conspiracies, right at the start even before the vaccines were brought out,” he said.

“I was like, ‘OK, if you think you have conquered this fear of being judged, why don’t you go on 60 Minutes and sit across from someone you know is going to do a hatchet job on you and make you out to be a crazy person in the face of the Australian public?’ I loved it, I enjoyed that experience because in my perception I was the comfortable one in that interview. None of that can hurt me, none of the lies they spin out there in the media can hurt me in any way shape or form because all it does is show the game for what it is.”

Evans speaks at an anti-vaccination rally in Hyde Park in 2021. Picture: Brook Mitchell/Getty Images

Secrets of the Underworld host Neil Cummins suggested Evans had been “hounded” for his views on diet and health.

“Eighty per cent of chronic illness in the western world is diet and lifestyle related,” Evans said.

“A lot of people would have you believe that you have to work out and run marathons and be fit to change that, shows like The Biggest Loser and all this type of brainwashing that’s out there. I’m not saying physical activity is not important, but diet trumps physical activity 100 times.”

Evans suggested the medical, pharmaceutical and food industries had a vested interest in keeping people “sick”.

“If 80 per cent of chronic illness can be eliminated, reversed, stopped by diet choices, could you imagine what would happen?” he said.

The wellness guru, who admitted he lives a “hermit” life with his wife after years of controversies, now has friends in high places who share his views on diet and chronic illness.

Evans last month released a children’s cookbook with Robert F Kennedy Jr, Donald Trump’s recently confirmed Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary.

Mr Kennedy, who was confirmed by the Senate on Thursday by a 52-48 vote, announced that ending the “childhood chronic disease epidemic” would be one of his top priorities in the powerful role which oversees 13 divisions and agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) — and a budget of roughly $US1.7 trillion ($2.7 trillion).

“For 20 years, I got down every morning on my knees and prayed that God would put me in a position where I can end childhood chronic disease epidemic in this country,” Mr Kennedy said after his swearing-in ceremony in the Oval Office.

New HHS Secretary RFK Jr shares many of Evans’ views on chronic illness. Picture: Instagram

President Trump the same day announced the formation of the “Make America Healthy Again Commission”, to be chaired by Mr Kennedy.

The commission will study chronic illnesses including asthma, auto-immune disease and autism.

“Six in 10 Americans have at least one chronic disease, and four in 10 have two or more chronic diseases,” Mr Trump’s executive order said.

“An estimated one in five United States adults lives with a mental illness … Seventy-seven per cent of young adults do not qualify for the military based in large part on their health scores. Ninety per cent of the nation’s $US4.5 trillion in annual healthcare expenditures is for people with chronic and mental health conditions. In short, Americans of all ages are becoming sicker, beset by illnesses that our medical system is not addressing effectively.”

The order calls for “ fresh thinking on nutrition, physical activity, healthy lifestyles, over-reliance on medication and treatments, the effects of new technological habits, environmental impacts, and food and drug quality and safety”.

“We must restore the integrity of the scientific process by protecting expert recommendations from inappropriate influence and increasing transparency regarding existing data,” it said. “We must ensure our healthcare system promotes health rather than just managing disease.”

The commission is tasked with producing a report within 100 days that assesses “the threat that potential over-utilisation of medication, certain food ingredients, certain chemicals, and certain other exposures pose to children”, as well as the “prevalence of and threat posed by the prescription of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, antipsychotics, mood stabilisers, stimulants, and weight-loss drugs”.

Within 180 days the commission will produce a strategy for a response to childhood chronic illness.

Originally published as ‘Co-ordinated attack’: Pete Evans opens up about cancellation following ‘neo-Nazi’ controversy