How Pioneer Woman Ree Drummond Traded Hollywood Dreams for Rural Life — and Became a Culinary Superstar

“I’m pretty sure I could’ve ended up on Real Housewives of Orange County,” she tells PEOPLE exclusively in this week’s cover story, on newsstands Friday. “They need a fair-skinned redhead.” Instead, Drummond, 48, has made a name for herself on the small screen in a much more benevolent fashion: as Food Network’s resident Pioneer Woman. Now on her seventh year of filming her hit show of the same title, Drummond has become one of the network’s most popular personalities, dishing up crowd-friendly comfort food as viewers catch a glimpse of the daily ranch tasks of her husband, Ladd, 48, and children, Alex, 20, Paige, 18, Bryce, 15, and Todd, 13. But before she married a cowboy and raised a family of ranchers on their expansive plot of land just west of Pawhuska, Oklahoma, Drummond had other plans for herself. Growing up only an hour away in the small industrial city of Bartlesville, it might as well have been a different planet for a girl who had traveled the country in ballet competitions. “I always thought, ‘There’s a big, huge world out there beyond this,’” she remembers. “When I was young, I wanted to be an actress. I had no idea what that meant, but I just thought it sounded fun.” This curiosity led her to flee Oklahoma for college at USC in Los Angeles—a city that she says she “inhaled,” with nights out on Sunset Strip, tasting exotic cuisine and running through a string of boyfriends. “I would describe myself during that time as extremely fun-loving and not focused at all,” she says with a laugh. “I just wanted non-stop action when I was young. I just wanted to go, go, go.” So when Drummond fell in love with a cowboy named Ladd, who she met in a smoky bar during a post-California pit stop back in her hometown, she surprised more than just herself. “I didn’t even know any cowboys growing up. When my friends heard that I was marrying a cattle rancher and moving to the country, they literally could not believe it,” she says. “They started calling me the Pioneer Woman as a joke.”...more