Rachel Uchitel Biography

Rachel Uchitel became a famous name in gossip in November of 2009 after the tabloid newspaper The National Enquirer claimed that she was the mistress of superstar golfer Tiger Woods. At the time, Rachel Uchitel was a nightclub manager and event planner in New York City. Her fiancee, Andy O’Grady, was killed in the World Trade Center attacks of 2001 and she was shown in newspapers in the days after the event, holding photos of O’Grady as she searched for him. At that time she worked for Bloomberg News, and she later moved to Las Vegas and became a VIP door hostess for the popular Tao nightclub. She also dated one of the club’s managing partners, Jason Strauss, an old friend, before moving back to New York City. A few days after The Enquirer made its claim that Uchitel had met Woods for a tryst in Australia, the golfer had 2:30 am car crash outside his home in Florida on 27 November 2009. The gossip site TMZ.com connected the two events, saying that Woods had fought with his wife, Elin Nordegren, over the Uchitel rumors. The next day, Uchitel told The New York Post that she and Woods “have never had an affair, and the claims we did are completely false.” However, she eventually negotiated a deal with Woods that paid her a reported $10 million for her silence.  Uchitel appeared on the TV show Celebrity Rehab in 2010.