17-year old Fuller Goldsmith, ‘Top Chef Junior’ contestant and ‘Chopped Junior’ winner dies of cancer

On Wednesday, Magic Elves, the company that produces Bravo’s Top Chef Junior announced on Instagram that Fuller Goldsmith had succumbed to cancer on Tuesday. The 17-year old chef had competed in the show, in 2017, in the first season.

He had earlier appeared on Food Network’s “Chopped Junior” as a contestant in 2017, when he was only 14. He won the first place and donated his $10,000 check to the Division of Hematology and Pediatric Oncology at Birmingham Children’s Hospital.

The teenager had been diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia when he was only three years old. He survived cancer four times but the last bout of treatment was unsuccessful. In February, Goldsmith had posted that his cancer had returned and that he would have 12 days of radiation followed by more chemo.

He also posted, “Round 5-I’m ready to fight.” The teenager would have been 18, had he survived his last bout of cancer, on Saturday, according to WIAT, a CBS affiliate in Birmingham, Alabama. His dad Scott Goldsmith told WIAT that his son “got tired and was ready to go.”

Young Goldsmith knew he wanted to be a chef at the age of four. After he won “Chopped Junior”, he returned home to Tuscaloosa and worked at Southern Ale House restaurant.

In 2017, Goldsmith told Tuscaloosa Magazine that cooking was the only thing that got him up when he was sick. He said that he felt less hurt when he was moving around the kitchen.

WIAT also reported that the young chef had cooked his favorite Southern food on “Chopped Junior.” Some of his winning dishes included

chicken tenders made with hush puppy batter
beer battered catfish
sugar beignets.

Many including the Top Chef Junior site, co-workers and more paid tribute to the young chef. Top Chef Junior host Vanessa Lachey wrote on the Magic Elves post that all of them loved Fuller a lot and that they would never forget his “contagious smile, laughter and butter tricks.”

Image Credit Instagram