Two-time world heavyweight boxing champion, Olympic gold medalist, and multi-million-dollar grilling entrepreneur George Foreman died on March 21, 2025, on the age of 76, in accordance with a press release from his household posted on the previous athlete’s Instagram.
Foreman initially gained world renown throughout his decades-long boxing profession, which included matches towards Muhammad Ali, Evander Holyfield, and Michael Moorer. Then, in 1994, he shortly re-established himself by endorsing a enterprise promoting indoor, countertop grills. In doing so, he pioneered utilizing the facility of TV and the cult of movie star in a pre-Web world to develop into a staple of American dwelling cooking within the ’90s.
Though he didn’t formally invent the instrument, Foreman’s involvement with the product’s commercial and advertising performed a defining function in making dwelling cooking extra accessible to People who felt excluded from culinary tradition within the Nineties. Since then, the affect of the George Foreman grill has been exhausting to overstate. (In 2000, CNN Cash projected that 12 to fifteen p.c of American properties within the ’90s had a George Foreman grill.)
The compact equipment has served as a logo, or a reminder, that anybody at any age can cook dinner. His motivational and inspirational remarks engaged skeptical seniors, weight-loss-obsessed calorie counters, and highschool classmates who may in any other case surrender on no matter challenges they face within the kitchen, the gymnasium, or elsewhere. His mixture of boundless positivity, dazzling charisma, and a painfully corny-yet-effective catchphrase led to quite a few different product endorsements and moments within the highlight of American popular culture. Over time, these tv appearances secured the boxer’s function as an advanced supply of nostalgia and culinary aspiration.
Foreman’s legacy was cemented as a distinguished success story of the ’90s and early aughts after the enterprise offered its 20 millionth George Foreman indoor grill in 2000. Nonetheless, his profession turned a cautionary story of the pitfalls of movie star influencers and viewers disinterest in what they understand to be over-endorsement.
Following the announcement, the household has requested privateness and time as they course of the passing of “a rare man we had been blessed to name our personal,” the publish reads.
