When you watch Gordon Ramsay’s burning temper and tough love on television (though I don’t think there is any love there), it makes you wonder if he’s like that at home…
It turns out there is no rest for his kids, as he enforces his strict rules onto them too, allowing them no access to his well-earned fortune.
After leaving the home of his alcoholic father at the age of 16 and making his way up the ranks, now earning the same as Beyonce, Gordon doesn’t want his kids to be spoilt and said ‘you appreciate it more when you’ve grafted for it’.
Ramsay and his partner Tana have four children: Matilda, 15, Jack and Holly, 17, and Megan, 18.
Speaking to the Telegraph, Gordon said:
Last time we went to Royal Hospital Road [Ramsay’s three Michelin starred flagship restaurant in Chelsea] was for Megan’s 16th birthday, and that was the first time we’ve ever eaten there with the kids.
They have served the Chelsea pensioners there for Christmas lunch, but not eaten there.
They don’t sit with us in first class. They haven’t worked anywhere near hard enough to afford that. At that age, at that size, you’re telling me they need to sit in first class? No, they do not. We’re really strict on that.
I turn left with Tana and they turn right and I say to the chief stewardess: “Make sure those little fuckers don’t come anywhere near us, I want to sleep on this plane.”
I worked my fucking arse off to sit that close to the pilot and you appreciate it more when you’ve grafted for it.
The 50-year-old chef has homes in Wandsworth, south London, LA, and Cornwall, pulling in £43 million last year, according to Forbes.
Despite this huge salary, he is careful to keep his kids grounded and makes sure that they earn their own money, do charity work, and learn to budget.
Gordon said:
Meg’s at uni and has a budget of £100 a week; the others get about £50 a week and they have to pay for their own phones, their bus fare.
The earlier you give them that responsibility to save for their own trainers and jeans, the better.
They all cook as a life skill as opposed to a career. I never want to put that onus on them. I don’t want them with a badge, going into a kitchen [with people] thinking that’s Ramsay’s daughter or that’s Ramsay’s son.
On a morbid note, Ramsay is making sure that his fortune is not going to his kids in his will.
He said:
It’s definitely not going to them, and that’s not in a mean way; it’s to not spoil them.
The only thing I’ve agreed with Tana is they get a 25 per cent deposit on a flat, but not the whole flat.
The Ramsay family endured a tragedy when his wife suffered a miscarriage of their fifth child five months into the pregnancy last year, and it ‘made the family unit even tighter’.
Gordon respects everything he’s got and is looking forward to his new show Culinary Genius which stars on ITV April 17 at 3pm.
It looks like his kids will be good and grounded, unlike most celebrity children.
