A friend of Food Network star Anne Burrell has hinted at the anguish she secretly battled years before her shocking death this Tuesday aged 55.

The Worst Cooks in America host was ‘unresponsive’ when law enforcement responded to a call around 7:50am on June 17, after her husband Stuart Claxton discovered her unconscious on the shower floor.

The New York Fire Department confirmed to Daily Mail that they were responding to a report of a cardiac arrest, but her cause of death is still being investigated by the Office of Chief Medical Examiner. Law enforcement sources have revealed a large quantity of ‘unknown pills’ was found near where she died, TMZ reports.

Now her pal Duff Goldman, whose Baltimore bakery Charm City Cakes was featured on the Food Network, has shared a testimonial to Burrell.

‘I’ve written and re-written this post so many times in the past 24 hours and I just don’t know what to say,’ he posted on Instagram alongside a photo of him with her.

‘Anne and I became friends in probably 2006. She was going through some stuff and I had heard that she was feeling it so on a trip to NYC from Baltimore I had made her a cake that said “Don’t let the b******s win.” She never did,’ he shared, without disclosing the nature of the problem that caused her private pain.

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Food Network star Anne Burrell has been fondly remembered by her friend and fellow chef Duff Goldman after she was discovered dead in her New York apartment

In 2006, Burrell’s media career was on the rise – she had made her TV debut the previous year as a sous chef on Iron Chef America, working under Mario Batali, and was two years away from getting her own show Secrets of a Restaurant Chef.

However Goldman has now revealed that even while she publicly began to blossom as a TV personality, she was battling personal issues behind the scenes.

‘We had a complex relationship and I remember the last conversation we had before our paths drifted was a pretty feisty debate about the merits of catfish. I believe the words “trash fish,” “tastes like mud,” and “cake boy” were used, haha,’ he shared.

‘Anne and I always had a spirited and somewhat acerbic back and forth. I really never knew why our paths drifted but I always hoped that wherever she was, Anne was doing well and was finding some happiness.’

While he was attending a New York City gala ‘a year or two ago’ with his wife Johnna Colbry and their daughter Josephine, four, Goldman saw Burrell again.

Goldman explained that he ‘took Josephine out to the lobby to give her a break from sitting at a table listening to speeches. We were playing with the marble columns and as we rounded one we saw Anne.’

He recalled: ‘Now, at this point we hadn’t spoken in years, and I won’t go into what we talked about but I will say that that conversation left my heart lifted and full of light, for it truly seemed to me that Anne really had found a measure of happiness and love.’

Goldman opined: ‘Life is tough, and we have to be tough to get through it. Anne was as tough as they come, but when you got past the armor there was a depth of compassion and kindness that was absolutely beautiful.’

The TV chef – who became synonymous with her trademark spiky platinum hair – is survived by husband Stuart Claxton, who found her ‘unresponsive’ Tuesday in the bathroom

He gushed: ‘My heart sings when I think of the love and tranquility that it seems Anne had found recently, and her genuine smile for my daughter and me in that lobby are what makes this tragedy just a little more bearable.

‘Anne, wherever you are I hope they have slow moving rivers because when I get there, we’ll get a couple of rods, a pint of chicken livers, and a sixer and I’ll teach you how to catch and cook the best catfish you ever had. Rest up, chef.’

Goldman’s tribute comes after another one of Burrell’s friends, chef Elizabeth Falkner, claimed that the late Food Network star was in ‘pretty decent shape’ when she last saw her on June 9 at dinner in New York City.

In an exclusive interview with Daily Mail, Falkner, 59, revealed, ‘I think Anne looks like she’s in pretty decent shape these days, so it’s kind of surprising to me.’

Not being able to comment specifically on any health issues, if any, she might’ve battled before her death, she did find her passing ‘so sudden and shocking.’

‘I know it is very personal to me what happened, and I can’t believe somebody even younger than me has just passed away. It’s close to home for all of us,’ she said.

‘The culinary family is like family, so this hurts a lot of us. We just all feel it.’

The shock comes from seeing her a few days ago at an intimate dinner she hosted – which she of course was the chef for the ‘fun night’ – at Soho House on June 9.

Late chef Anne Burrell stars in ‘House of Knives’ trailer

The beloved TV chief was found dead at her apartment in Brooklyn on June 17

‘I’ve seen [her] over all these years, not just on television competitions and shows, but at different parties and events and stuff, and we’ve always been friendly.

‘But just in the last month we’ve been texting. I said, “Come to my dinner at Soho House, it’ll be great to see you.” And she brought her husband and we just had such a good time,’ she shared about how the famous chefs reconnected.

‘It was just so sweet. So this is just really so sudden and shocking.’

Burrell even texted her the following day on June 10 to let her know that she and her husband, Stuart Claxton, had a great time.

‘She’s like, “Thanks so much for inviting us. It was a truly lovely time and very delicious. Please send me some pics so I can post.”

‘And I said, “It was so great to see you, Anne.”‘

The pals even made a pact to ‘talk more often.’

‘We were like, “Let’s just make a point of talking and texting more often,”‘ Falkner shared, while noting that she is ‘very grateful’ to have had a special night with the beloved chef and other guests last week.

Anne Burrell co-star reveals final conversation before death

Burrell gushed to Daily Mail in April about marital bliss and how married life ‘seems like it’s been four minutes’ rather than nearly four years

‘I’m just bummed. I feel like [our friendship] just got cut really short fast,’ she added.

The Worst Cooks in America alum spoke highly about being a mother.

‘When she came to the dinner at Soho House, she said that she was very much enjoying being a stepmother,’ Falkner said, referring to the star’s stepson Javier, 20.

‘And her husband’s so sweet. She just seemed to be in such a good place. That’s the best way for me to describe it. Because being a chef and being a television personality is two major full-time jobs, but enjoying your life outside of that can be challenging. And I think she was definitely enjoying her life outside of that whole world of the networks and all that stuff.’

Burrell spoke exclusively with Daily Mail back in April about marital bliss. Her and Stuart got married in 2021 after meeting on a dating app in 2018.

‘October will be four years,’ she said at the City Harvest gala. ‘It seems like it’s been four minutes. I don’t know if it’s a honeymoon [phase], but I feel like it’s settled into married life days which I really enjoy.’

Falkner, who appeared on cooking shows like Iron Chef and Top Chef, recalled meeting Burrell’s husband before they got married in 2021.

‘I randomly saw her in Rome outside of a restaurant, and I was like, “Oh my God, that’s Anne Burrell walking by!” And we said hey and stuff,’ Falkner revealed, noting that she and Stuart were on a ‘pre-wedding trip.’

Falkner described her pal as ‘one of those people that’s kind of intimidating and certainly hardcore as chefs can be… but she was definitely very sweet’

Describing her passing ‘really unfortunate,’ ‘so sad,’ ‘unexpected’ and even ‘tragic,’ Falkner believes Burrell’s death is a huge loss to the restaurant community since everyone involved is ‘another kind of family.’

Falkner, herself, said that being a chef is a ‘highly stressful job,’ but it was something that Burrell mastered throughout her career.

‘The thing about Anne Burrell is she wasn’t only a TV chef, she was a really good, really good cook, really good chef. She educated a lot of people,’ the James Beard Foundation’s board of trustees member told Daily Mail.

‘I don’t even know how she had the patience to do Worst Cooks in America, because I think that would be a challenging show to do patience wise. But she was the real deal. She could cook a lot. She had mad skills. It was always fun watching her cook. I told her I loved watching her on House of Knives.’

She added, ‘She’s one of those people that’s kind of intimidating and certainly hardcore as chefs can be. I mean, you kind of have to be that way. It’s the only way to teach people how to deal with ingredients and not to mess it up all the time. But she was definitely very sweet… She had a certain kind of sparkle.’