The Bon Appétit YouTube channel, one of the platform’s most popular destinations for food content, has remained dormant since June 5, after a controversy rocked the Condé Nast-owned title’s beloved ‘Test Kitchen‘ crew, rippling across the storied publisher at large.
Now, however, one of Bon Appétit’s beloved on-air hosts, assistant editor Sohla El-Waylly, has returned to YouTube, albeit on another channel — that of YouTube chef Andrew Rea, who is better known to his 7.5 million subscribers as Binging With Babish.
Insider notes that El-Waylly’s appearance arrives two months after Bon Appétit’s editor-in-chief, Adam Rapoport, resigned after a photo resurfaced in which he appeared to be donning brownface, and amid allegations of racially-charged pay disparity at the long-running food pub. El-Waylly was outspoken in calling for Rapoport’s resignation, and alleging that staffers of color had not been compensated for their video appearances while their white colleagues had been. At the time, El-Waylly also said she had been “pushed in front of video as a display of diversity,” per Insider.
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While the Babish collab did not touch on any of these issues, El-Waylly turned up to help Rea temper chocolate — a tricky skill for which she has a special knack, as displayed on the popular Bon Appétit series Gourmet Makes, which frequently involves candy concoctions.
On July 19, El-Wayly shared an Instagram update regarding Bon Appétit’s ongoing efforts to redress concerns of racial inequity. “BA is moving forward, slowly making the changes to become more equitable and inclusive,” she wrote. “What’s to become of video is still unknown, but at least in the meantime over on the site and in the magazine you’ll find my ice cream pie, [associate editor] Christina Chaey‘s summer vegetable grain bowl, and [editor] Sarah Jampel‘s blueberry buckle. We’re still here for you at BA making content we hope you will love.”
Bon Appétit’s YouTube channel still counts 6 million subscribers and has recently been nabbing roughly 20 million monthly views. Before controversy struck, the channel was nabbing in the neighborhood of 80 million monthly views.
You can check out El-Waylly’s collab with Rea right here:
