The Double Life of Gordon Ramsay
Celebrity chefs are a dime a dozen on TV these days, but there's one explosive Scot who stands
out in the congested culinary crowd ...
"I'm done standing here with a bunch of idiots.
F--- you all.
Good luck, superstars!"
Gordon Ramsay is known for his relentlessness, his demands for perfection, and for, at times,
unleashing a vicious temper.
He shouts, he swears, and he's definitely not afraid to tell people what he really thinks
of them.
But the Gordon who's terrified chefs and restaurant owners around the world for decades isn't
the Gordon who goes home to his wife and family.
There's more to this hotheaded chef than meets the eye.
Gordon the Charitable
For years, Ramsay and his family have supported various charities, including Women's Aid,
an organization that provides support to women and children who have been the victims of
domestic abuse.
It's a subject close to his heart: Ramsay has spoken openly in interviews about the
times his alcoholic father hit his mother — once so hard she needed 57 stitches.
Gordon and his wife, Tana, also have their own charitable organization, The Gordon & Tana
Ramsay Foundation, helping children with medical conditions that require prolonged hospital
stays.
There's also The Gordon Ramsay Appeal, his fundraising effort to benefit the Scottish
Spina Bifida Association.
Gordon and Tana are also regular contenders in triathlons and marathons, raising money
for a variety of charities.
Gordon the Unflinching
The F-Word is a cooking show/talk show hybrid that Ramsay has hosted both in the UK and
in the States.
On the British version in 2006, his family hand-raised two pigs in their backyard throughout
the season.
Ramsay also learned about illegal pig castration in Europe and even went into the abattoir
as the pigs were slaughtered, and the process left him sickened.
"It's enough to make anyone turn f---ing vegetarian, for God's sake."
It was the chef's first trip behind-the-scenes at a slaughterhouse, and organizations such
as PETA lauded his decision to show the footage uncensored.
In the end, he fed the pigs to his children, giving them a true "farm-to-table" experience.
"Jack, did you enjoy the pigs?"
"Megan, did you enjoy looking after the pigs?"
"Yeah."
"Yes?
Do they taste better because you reared them and grew them?"
"Honey, she's still eating!"
Ramsay aired similar uncensored footage of his family's turkeys and lambs being slaughtered,
which also earned him praise from animal rights activists.
Gordon the Investigator
In 2010, Ramsay presented a documentary called Shark Bait, in which he took at look at the
damage being done to the world's shark population because of the popularity of shark fin soup.
In Costa Rica, Ramsay and his crew tracked some of the biggest harvesters of fins.
They discovered thousands of shark fins drying on a roof, but were chased away and threatened
when they went to get a closer look.
Ramsay and his crew were threatened multiple times during their investigation, which uncovered
evidence of a gruesome, wasteful practice known as "finning," which is when a shark's
fin is cut off to be sold but its body is thrown back into the ocean to die.
"It's without doubt the worst act of animal cruelty I've ever seen."
Gordon at Rest
When your work days are 16 hours long and most of that work is done in a different country,
quality time to rest is next to impossible.
Ramsay says staying involved in several ongoing projects helps him keep the momentum going,
and while he's working he can expect to get about three hours of sleep a night.
How does he do it?
He takes weekends off — one of the guiding factors of his business plan since the beginning.
His flagship restaurant has never been open on the weekends, a decision he made from the
start for himself, his family, and his employees.
Ramsay says weekends are when he simply "power[s] down for 48 hours."
Gordon the Family Man
Between TV, traveling, fundraising, and his many restaurants, Ramsay also finds time to
be the father he never had.
He's taught his four children how to cook, and helped produce his youngest daughter Tilly's
own BBC cooking show, Tillywood.
He says teaching his kids how to cook for themselves is as important as teaching them
"geography, history, and French," and it's an opportunity he didn't have at their age.
It's easy to imagine Ramsay is the same, obscenity-shouting chef at home as he is on TV, but in interview
in Men's Journal, he insists he's "never cursed in front of [his] children.
Never, ever."
When Ramsay appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, he talked about a few words he taught his
kids to use instead of cursing ...
"Rather than saying the word 's---,' which, y'know, is not nice: 'Shiitake!'"
"I see.
Like the mushroom."
"Like a mushroom."
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