Gordon Ramsay reveals why he can never forgive Jamie Oliver
Ramsay explains his ongoing feud with Oliver, and why the celebrity chefs refuse to speak with each other
Gordon Ramsay has revealed that he will not speak with Jamie Oliver again unless the Naked Chef apologises to his wife Tana, after Oliver upset the couple with his comments during an interview.
"Jamie turned round and said [in a newspaper], 'I've got five kids, he's got four kids'", Ramsay told Radio Times. "To judge someone else's family on the amount of kids you have, that's... that's..."
Oliver's comments appear to have hit so hard as they came after what Ramsay describes as a "shit year", during which he and his wife Tana had lost a baby at five months through miscarriage, his daughter had a collapsed lung and he ruptured his own achilles.
"Boys will always fight and butt heads but Tana was mortified, I mean really mortified," Ramsay said.
The comments that Ramsay appears to be referring were reported in the Sun newspaper in August, after Ramsay mocked Oliver during his stint as host of ITV's The Nightly Show.
“All my friends and people I work with in TV were very p***** off for me," Oliver was quoted as saying. “I was doing TV years before him, so maybe five years ago it would have bothered me and I may have responded.
“But he’s got four kids and I’ve got five kids and I don’t want to be slagging off some kids’ dad on telly. It’s not nice.”
The celebrity chefs have repeatedly clashed over the years, with Oliver once suggesting that "a bit of drama is always good for some PR.”
However, in the latest issue of Radio Times, Ramsay criticised what he describes as Oliver's hypocrisy when it comes to promoting healthy eating.
"It's all very well to spout off now about sugar tax and supermarkets. None of that was spoken about when he was label-slapping with Sainsbury's for ten years", he said.
"And no disrespect, but we're chefs, not politicians. When you breathe that stuff down the public's throat and say, 'I'm leaving if we have Brexit', then, I'm sorry, the door stands open. Stand for what you say. Sadly, the only time he opens his mouth is when he's got something to promote."
Read the full interview in the new issue of Radio Times, available in shops and online from Tuesday 10th October