Ex-Food Network chef finally booted from NYC apartment after using loopholes to avoid rent for over 4 years
His days poaching a Brooklyn landlord are finally over.
Ex-Food Network reality star-turned-squatter Madison Cowen has vacated his Boerum Hill apartment — after relying on soft eviction laws to avoid more than $145,000 in rent payments the past four and a half years.
The British-born ex-champ of “Chopped” and “Iron Chef” and his family were already out of the one-bedroom State Street pad Tuesday morning before landlord Gus Sheha arrived with a city marshal, Charles Marchisotto, to formally evict him under court order and change the locks.
“We’re just happy that he is out,” a relieved Sheha told The Post, minutes after entering the apartment.
“I would hope others see this and understand what type of tenant he was and are not left in the same position I was.”
The one-bed apartment, which Cowen initially rented for $2,700 a month, was clean and appeared in good shape, with the chef only leaving behind a Swiffer mop.
The serial squatter still owes 53 months in back rent on the apartment, which he occupied since October 2019, according to Sheha.
He hasn’t paid a cent for the place since January 2020, relying on legal loopholes like repeatedly appealing eviction orders to remain in the apartment, said the landlord.
“The system is only getting worse,” Sheha said.
“Unfortunately, it is small landlords who get hurt the most here and could potentially go bankrupt when you have tenants not paying the rent for four and a half years.”
Sheha said he and his family expect to eat the rent money owed to them, conceding he’d have to spend more money on lawyers to file another lawsuit — and there’s no guarantee he’ll be able to track down Cowan to get paid.
“The onus is on me again, and it’s unfair,” he said.
Cowan’s website notes he’s catered posh events for former President Bill Clinton, actress Scarlett Johansson and other A-listers. He briefly enjoyed Food Network TV fame after winning “Chopped” in 2010, and winning an episode of “Iron Chef” in 2012.
He initially took advantage of a pandemic-driven state moratorium on evictions from March 2020 through mid-January 2022.
Since then, he skirted five separate eviction orders by running back to court and filing new appeals. He opted not to appeal again after a judge slapped him with a sixth eviction order two weeks ago.
Sheha isn’t the first landlord Cowan stiffed for rent.
He previously failed to pay $46,200 in rent on an apartment he lived in on Concord Street in downtown Brooklyn from 2012 to 2015, according to court records.
Cowan could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
