Gordon Ramsay is the Marmite of TV chefs. While Rick Stein will forever be the man I want to evolve into, Ramsay sure has millions of fans out there too.
However what makes Ramsay so well known out there in the stratosphere of TV food shows is his personality. He’s rude, obnoxious, incredibly angry, short-tempered, yet also pretty f*cking hilarious.
For instance: What are you? An idiot sandwich.
You’d think away from the cameras and the limelight and the fancy Michelin restaurants, there’s another side to Ramsay. An introverted, caring, happy Ramsay – especially when he’s around his kids. But you’d be wrong.
While I’m sure he can be a lovely guy from time to time, it turns out there is no rest for his kids, as he enforces his strict rules onto them too, especially when it comes to his whopping £113 million 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 Beyoncé, 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, 16, Jack and Holly, 18, and Megan, 19.
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 f*ckers don’t come anywhere near us, I want to sleep on this plane.”
I worked my f*cking 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 £42.3 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.
However Ramsay isn’t only harsh on others, he’s also brutally honest with himself, which was made clear when it was unveiled earlier this year that he had lost a lot of weight upon realising he was out of shape, or in his own words: ‘a fat f*ck’.
After sharing a photo of himself looking ripped while walking on a beach, people began to question his rapid weight-loss.
He said at the time:
Tana was not impressed with the way I was.
I was overweight, 18 stone. I looked like a sack of sh*t. I look at the pictures and think, ‘How did Tana stay around?’
Because Tana has got better-looking and more gorgeous. And there she is, getting in bed with a fat f*ck.
Upon making the realisation Ramsay adopted a strict fitness regime and now weighs just over 13 stone.
Fair play.
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