It's been more than 21 years since British chef Jamie Oliver's game-changing cooking
show, "The Naked Chef," debuted on BBC 2. Some fans still wonder why Oliver's uber-popular
program disappeared into the ether at the close of 2001. Let's dig into the real reason
why "The Naked Chef" was cancelled.
After working as a kid at his parent's pub in Essex and attending Westminster Catering
College, Jamie Oliver eventually landed a job as a sous chef for The River Café, the
famed Italian restaurant in London. One day, a colleague called in sick, and Oliver, who
had the day off, took his place. It turned out to be a date with destiny, for who should
turn up in the kitchen but a BBC television team, onsite to shoot a documentary.
"Alright, we've got garlic here, with some olive oil. Gonna add a little bit of that."
He was part of the kitchen team, but never mind: Oliver's singular charisma was apparent
to the late Patricia Llewellyn, the producer behind the British sensation, "Two Fat Ladies."
Convinced of his appeal, she spent almost a year persuading BBC higher-ups that the
shaggy blond boy-chef deserved his own show.
Contract signed, cool East London flat rented as the backdrop, they were ready to roll.
A concept soon emerged that allowed Oliver to relax and chat with Llewellyn while slicing,
dicing, and prepping meals on camera. Or zip around town on his Vespa, in search of fresh
veggies, or slide down the banister, to let his friends in the door.
"The Naked Chef" first aired in April, 1999 and audiences ate it up. In a heartbeat he
had a book in the works and a supermarket endorsement. Perhaps it all came too fast,
too soon.
With his affable personality, playful patter, and iconic catch-phrases, Oliver easily wormed
his way into his audience's heart. Women especially were drawn to the chef and the show, but it
wasn't always win-win with the menfolk.
"Look! It's that bloke off the telly. Let's follow him."
Oliver claims that in the early days of his career, he suffered lots of abuse from men,
reports the British tabloid, The Sun. In the first two years of his acclaim, "The Naked
Chef" years, Oliver said that men were so angry with him that they chased and punched
him a few times.
Why was he a punching bag? Apparently, at the time, couples would come home from work
dog tired, and when men asked their wives or girlfriends what was for dinner, the women
took umbrage. Oliver told The Sun, quote, "They weren't having it. And rightly so."
After watching him cook on television, women tried to convince their partners that it was
their turn to man the stove, and the men were supposedly infuriated.
In her book, Pop Culture in Europe, author Juliana Tzvetkova writes that at the time
BBC 2 aired "The Naked Chef," the channel was creating television that captured the
dream of leading a high-quality lifestyle. Jamie Oliver's show, with its hip pad and
Vespa adventures, met the criteria, plus he made home cooking seem accessible to everyone.
The show worked its magic until the end of 2001, when, according to Tzvetkova, BBC 2
cancelled it, because Oliver refused to dissolve his contract with Sainsbury's. Oliver had
made a deal with the supermarket chain, and went on to appear, over 11 years, in more
than 100 TV advertising campaigns, becoming a brand ambassador who could convert mundane
items into mega-sellers.
BBC News says that Oliver's contract expired in December, 2001, and he wasn't up for another
season of "The Naked Chef." Instead, Oliver was trying to negotiate a new series, "Oliver's
Army," with Oliver training unemployed young adults in a London eatery, but contract talks
broke down, and BBC 2 dropped him.
The BBC's guidelines also disapproved of on-screen stars forging commercial tie-ins, such as
advertising deals. At the time, Oliver wasn't the only family member shilling for Sainsbury's.
His mother, father, grandmother, and wife, Jules, had joined the Sainsbury's party.
Did BBC 2 drop Oliver because of his Sainsbury's contract, or had Oliver had enough? Either
way, "The Naked Chef" show was over.
"The Naked Chef" was cancelled; nevertheless, the brand had already taken on another life,
as a cookbook series. Perhaps Jamie Oliver had been itching to try a new medium. And
if he was casting about for a new challenge, this might have been it. After all, Oliver
had severe dyslexia, which had dogged him since his school days.
In her Jamie Oliver biography, author Stephanie Watson says that Oliver wound up partnering
with an editor to write The Naked Chef cookbook. Oliver supplied the creative ideas, while
his editor helped with the writing. Their target audience: amateur cooks. Published
in 2000, it wound up selling over a million copies worldwide.
In talking to Get the Gloss about his 2017 cookbook, "5 Ingredients: Quick and Easy Food!"
Oliver waxed nostalgic about that first effort, saying,
"I looked at the Naked Chef book the other day and I was 23, I was a baby, I was a special
needs kid from school. It's still a good book, I still tested every recipe. As naïve and
inexperienced as I was, I knew that the public had to be given something that worked. And
that book went crazy. Twenty books later I'm still as excited and I'm still learning."
Obviously that initial endeavor wasn't the end of his Naked Chef chapter. Oliver published
sequels in quick succession, including "The Return of the Naked Chef" and "Happy Days
with the Naked Chef," and even launched a line of cookware.
And if his TV show hadn't made him a household name, then his cookbooks and various other
ventures certainly bumped up his visibility. Even Tony Blair knew who the Naked Chef was.
Jamie Oliver was personally invited to 10 Downing Street to cook for the then-prime
minister and dignitaries.
With the cookbooks now in the hands of his audience, it was time to do a book tour. Oliver
launched his Happy Days Tour in the fall of 2001. The beloved chef was so in demand that
over 17,000 people jammed into U.K. theaters for a chance to see him in the flesh.
Oliver not only hosted cooking shows in bookstores and theaters for sold-out crowds, he also
sat behind a drum kit and performed for audiences. Turns out that the passionate chef is passionate
about drumming, too. Hello Magazine reveals that he started playing in rock bands when
he was a teenager, back when he started dating his wife, Jules.
While Jamie Oliver wasn't able to interest the BBC 2 in "Oliver's Army," he was still
able to move forward with the concept of helping underprivileged kids get a leg up in the food
world.
In 2002, Oliver set up the Fifteen Foundation, a London-based venture that gave young apprentices
from underprivileged backgrounds the chance to experience the food industry firsthand
at the chef's training restaurant, Fifteen.
Fifteen was also the subject matter of Channel 4's five-part documentary series, called "Jamie's
Kitchen," which showed the evolution of the project, as Oliver put his energy into shaping
the aspiring group into chefs. The chef went on to launch the Fifteen project throughout
the U.K. and in other locations overseas.
A social impact report released in 2018 by the Jamie Oliver Group says that together
with its successor, Fifteen Cornwall, which opened in 2006 as a franchise, the Fifteen
concept trained more than 500 apprentices, readying them for a career in the food world.
In the years to follow, Jamie Oliver made great strides in his attempts to change the
status quo and raise awareness about the need for healthy food. It seems feasible that Oliver's
mission of helping and teaching others took root way back in "The Naked Chef" years, when
he talked up the merits of fresh food and simple preparations. Even though "The Naked
Chef" was cancelled, those ideas kept growing.
In the television series, "Jamie's School Dinners," which aired in 2005, he took on
school cafeterias in the U.K., revealing the subpar standards of the meals served. Oliver
took responsibility for helming school meals at Kidbrooke School, London, for an entire
year. Oliver began a campaign to raise the standard of all the meals served by Britain's
schools, winning both public awareness and a pledge from the government to beef up its
spending on school dinners by 280 million pounds over the course of three years.
Channel 4's Political Awards named Oliver the Most Inspiring Political Figure of 2005.
That same year, he took home U.K.'s National Television Award for Best Factual Programme,
for "Jamie's School Dinners," and a Special Recognition Award.
Jamie Oliver may have left "The Naked Chef" behind because he just had much bigger aspirations.
After it was cancelled, he hosted several shows and led campaigns that tackled issues
closest to his heart.
In 2007, that theme of fresh produce from "The Naked Chef" days surfaced once again
in "Jamie at Home," a show revolving around urban gardening. In 2008, chicken dinners
preoccupied the chef. In the documentary, "Jamie's Fowl Dinners," he shines a spotlight
on the cruelty of intensely farmed chickens, pleading with consumers and retailers to buy
chickens raised under more caring conditions.
"Jamie's Food Revolution," which aired in the States in 2010, revisited the topic of
healthy school meals and eating habits in Huntington, West Virginia, which has been
called the unhealthiest city in America and in 2011, the show headed to Los Angeles. A
few years later, he created Food Revolution Day, a yearly global celebration of food education
and from-scratch home cooking.
And in the 2015 documentary, "Sugar Rush," he goes head-to-head with the sweet stuff.
Describing the documentary, The Independent says that Oliver delves into advertising campaigns
for sugar-packed foods and drinks, the amount of sugar that's in so-called "healthy" food
items, and the impact of Type 2 diabetes, among other diseases, noting that he has a
"categoric belief in a sugar tax." The British government listened, introducing the Soft
Drinks Industry Levy in 2016, and implementing it in 2018.
Jamie Oliver wasn't just a TV star, cookbook author, and Tony Blair whisperer. He was also
a chef with restaurant clout. After his training restaurant, Fifteen, Oliver opened Jamie's
Italian, in 2008, followed by Barbecoa and other chains. According to the New York Times,
at the apex of his career, he served 7.5 million meals a year and employed 4,500 people.
The past few years, the chickens have come home to roost for The Naked Chef. The Times
says that Oliver was faced with multiple obstacles, from taxes and climbing prices of ingredients
and rent to opening restaurants in gentrifying areas without foot traffic. And then, with
the advent of Brexit, in 2016, the pound's value plummeted. Some critics said he was
overextended, while others said his food and service were lacking. Regardless, the bottom
fell out.
"I was good at running one restaurant. But I wouldn't call myself a businessman."
The Jamie Oliver Restaurant Group went into administration, a form of bankruptcy protection,
in May 2019. It's estimated that Oliver owed creditors close to 83 million pounds, even
though he had tried to salvage the situation, ponying up 15 million pounds of his own money.
With no new investor in sight, he closed or sold all 25 of his restaurants, and let go
of over 1,000 employees.
Jamie Oliver may not be operating a big chain of restaurants anymore, but he's still active
and visible. "The Naked Chef" hasn't run an original episode in 20 years, but Oliver has
consistently used TV to teach people how to cook fast, healthy, and inexpensive food.
Since the demise of his first show, Oliver has presided over several other shows, including
"Oliver's Twist," and "Jamie's Quick and Easy Food."
Oliver reportedly plans to push forward and focus on the things he does best. He became
health ambassador for the giant supermarket chain, Tesco. And he's still fighting his
most important battles. His 2030 Project aims to halve childhood obesity rates in the U.K.
over the next decade.
Jamie's Ministry of Food, a program inspired by the same-name 2008 TV series, partners
with corporations and charities to provide hands-on food education, and is still going
strong in the U.K. and Australia. His line of cookware remains a hot ticket, and he is
apparently the king of books: According to the Daily Mail, at one point only J.K. Rowling
moved more product in Britain.
With nearly two dozen cookbooks now under his belt, it seems likely that the Naked Chef
will remain a bountiful source of culinary programs, missions, and projects for years
to come.
Check out one of our newest videos right here! Plus, even more Mashed videos about your favorite
celebrity chefs are coming soon. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so
you don't miss a single one.