12 Tragic Things About Gordon Ramsay's Past You Never Knew

Gordon Ramsay is one of the world's most famous chefs, rated second only to Alain Ducasse, according to the latter's culinary school. The Scottish-born celebrity holds seven Michelin stars, owns restaurants stretching from the United States to Asia, and has a TV career that would make your average mogul blush.

Over the years, he has taught us everything from how to elevate humble pasta to how to cut onions. But his global success has not come easy. Ramsay has suffered his fair share of knocks — from the horrors of his childhood and the financial struggles his business empire has faced, to the physical and emotional rollercoasters the "Hell's Kitchen" star has endured in more recent years.

With Netflix cameras poised to follow the world-renowned chef on his latest London-based venture, I'll go behind the loudmouthed television personality and lift the lid on his professional and personal highs and lows, laying out the 12 tragic things about Ramsay's past you never knew.

In his 2006 autobiography "Humble Pie," Gordon Ramsay detailed the appalling treatment meted out by his violent, alcoholic father to him, his two siblings and their mother Helen. He said his father often used a belt as punishment — hitting the kids on the legs for something as mundane as drinking Coke from the refrigerator.  

The children were even placed in an orphanage after his dad was jailed for beating Helen so badly she ended up in hospital. Between the ages of five and 16, Ramsay, who loved tomato soup and white bread grilled cheese as a kid, said his family moved around a lot, while he got his first taste of life in a kitchen working as a dishwasher.

An opportunity to escape this itinerant life came with the chance to become a professional footballer for Glasgow Rangers, only for a knee injury to cruelly slam the door. Down but not out, Ramsay switched focus to his other growing passion: cooking. 

After learning his craft at the elbows of greats such as Marco Pierre White in London and Joël Robuchon in France, Gordon Ramsay quickly went on to become head chef at Aubergine restaurant, which won two Michelin stars.

By 1999, he was ready to open his own establishment, a process that was documented in the U.K. series "Boiling Point." Brits immediately loved to hate his potty-mouthed, bad boy persona but that pull-no-punches attitude has landed Ramsay in water hot enough to cook an egg many, many times since.

In 2003, vegetarians were up in arms when he admitted to lying to a table of diners about using vegetable stock to make an artichoke soup, when he'd actually used chicken. In 2005, he made headlines after tricking lovers of a plant-based diet into eating a parma ham-laced pizza for an episode of "Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares." But they were far from the only people the hot-tempered chef has offended.

While working with Marco Pierre White at Aubergine, Gordon Ramsay started to believe he was being pushed out by his mentor and decided to take action. Only in 2007 did the chef finally admit he was behind a remarkable act of sabotage in 1998: arranging for the restaurant's precious reservation book to be stolen and blaming Pierre White.

Fast forward to 2009 and Ramsay found himself at the center of a row, this time Down Under. He was forced to apologize after making less-than-flattering comments about Australian journalist Tracy Grimshaw that upset both the prime minister Kevin Rudd and his deputy, Julia Gillard. That came just weeks after a scandal involving claims that so-called 'boil-in-the-bag' meals, including coq au vin, and orange and bitter chocolate tart, were served at some of his high-end restaurants. 

By the time he gave a candid interview to The Guardian in 2010, Ramsay was fighting to save his reputation, saying: "There has come a time when, at the age of 43, I'm getting a bit tired of the foul-mouthed bully chef." Although he eventually bounced back, success still wasn't guaranteed: In 2023, two of his TV shows — "Next Level Chef" and "Gordon Ramsay's Future Food Stars" – were ditched by U.K. broadcasters. 

The annus horribilis of 2009 meant Ramsay was not top of many people's dinner party lists, but there was little comfort from the star's business empire, either. He told Marie Claire that overspending and missed revenue targets had left his company, Gordon Ramsay Holdings (GRH), on the brink of collapse and owing $9.1 million in taxes.

"Tenacity and ambition overtook me. We thought we could do anything, that we could not fail. We flew too high, too fast," he said. It took several radical measures, including scaling down his presence in Europe and Los Angeles, firing staff at the London HQ and investing more than $6 million of his own money to turn things around.

However, not even being Gordon Ramsay could insulate him from the hammerblow of Covid-19: His restaurants lost $72.6 million between March 2020 and February 2021. "I do feel under pressure to give my younger members of staff, especially, some hope, and the sense that we can get out of this. There have been so many tears, people at their wits' end," he told The Sun.

We must rewind a few years to 2010 for this unfortunate episode in Gordon Ramsay's life. Bearing in mind everything that had happened to the celebrity chef by then, it is perhaps understandable that Ramsay didn't have 'being hacked by my father-in-law' on his bingo card.

After being fired as the business manager of GRH, Chris Hutcheson and his sons Adam and Christopher illegally accessed the firm's computers nearly 2,000 times in 2010. You just know they weren't looking for tips to pep up their mashed potato. At The Old Bailey criminal court, it emerged they sold some information to now-defunct U.K. tabloid News of the World, while other data may have given Hutcheson the edge in a separate High Court battle involving Ramsay and the lease of the York & Albany pub in London. 

Hutcheson was jailed for six months in 2017 for conspiring to hack Ramsay's computer system. Judge John Bevan QC said about the case: "The whole episode of five months amounts to an unattractive and unedifying example of dirty linen being washed in public." Incredibly, the "Hell's Kitchen" star and his wife Tana both forgave Hutcheson when he was released the same year. 

Almost a decade after losing the lawsuit centered on the York & Albany the empty venue, still leased by Ramsay, was once again in the spotlight in April 2024. That month, squatters including the Anarchist Association London Branch and the Camden Art Cafe entered the pub to establish it as a space for the local community.

In a statement sent to Freedom, the group said: "At a time when Camden market has been bought out by a billionaire and many long-standing local businesses are being evicted from their units, it's even more important that we all band together in all the forms of resistance that we know and can."

The building's owner, film director Gary Love, whose 25-year lease agreement caused Ramsay so many problems, denied having any contact with the squatters, before they were removed from the property a few days after their initial illegal entry. At the time, the York & Albany was up for sale for a cool $16.4 million.

With his string of restaurants and TV show hits, Gordon Ramsay knows what success looks like. But the celebrated chef has also experienced more than a few "Kitchen Nightmares" of his own, most notably in 2004: The year his Amaryllis restaurant in Glasgow closed for good.

Although it earned the city its sole Michelin star and gave Ramsay, who was born in Johnstone, a chance to show how far he had come since his horrific childhood, Amaryllis' days were numbered after the tragic death of head chef David Dempsey the previous year. At the time, Ramsay had no idea his friend was using cocaine, but a bad reaction to the drug led to a fatal fall from a block of flats. "David's death has been a devastating blow ... I think Amaryllis can rest in peace and I think that guy will rest in peace," he told The Scotsman.

More recently, he expressed his sadness at the 2024 passing of TikTok star Madison Baloy, who lost her battle with terminal cancer. On Instagram, Ramsay said: "She was kind, fun and a true inspiration to me and my three girls ... She'll always be my first & last dance in the kitchen and never forgotten." Just a few months later, trainee chef Mussie Imnetu, who worked under Ramsay as well as chefs Marcus Wareing and Alain Ducasse, died after being attacked in London. 

The culinary industry is rife with danger, not least the food safety pitfalls and all those sharp knives, to the mental stresses and strains of pleasing the public. Ironically, Gordon Ramsay's personal brushes with death have happened away from the kitchen environment. The first was in 2008, while filming a controversial trip to Iceland for U.K. series "The F Word."

While hunting for puffins (yes, the seabirds with the technicolor beaks) to cook, Ramsay slipped over the cliff edge and fell into the ice-cold water, his heavy winter clothing dragging him down. "I'm an extremely good swimmer, but I couldn't get to the surface. I was panicking and my lungs were filling with water. When I got to the top after getting my boots off I was dazed and my head was totally numb," he later told The Sun (per Digital Spy). Only on the flight home did the reality of what happened really hit home.

Ramsay was in the headlines again in June 2024, after a Connecticut bike outing ended in disaster. The chef was thrown into the air after his wheel hit a pothole. When he adjusted his helmet, he noticed it was split. "I honestly thought I was going to pass out," Ramsay told Men's Health. Later, he showed off a bruise the color of blueberries, and told Instagram followers: "I'm lucky to be standing here, I'm in pain, it's been a brutal week."

Of all the trials and tribulations Gordon Ramsay has faced, arguably one of the most difficult was the drug addiction that consumed his younger brother Ronnie. In 2023, he told podcaster Spencer Matthews how his sibling had ended up on a slippery slope after running with the wrong crowd. And he told the Daily Mail, "I have that reminder on a daily basis how different it could have been if I'd gone down a different road and felt the country owed me something rather than fighting for something," the chef said. In 2007, Ronnie Ramsay was jailed for 10 months in Indonesia after being caught with 100 milligrams of heroin. He reached out to his older brother for help but the celebrated chef refused to pay for legal support.

His autobiography "Humble Pie" explained why, after paying for Ronnie to enter rehab five times, he wasn't prepared to help this time. "It's the one thing I feel I've failed at. I find it hard knowing that there's nothing I can do to help," Ramsay wrote. Both his brother's addiction and David Dempsey's death were mentioned in the 2017 two-part documentary "Gordon Ramsay on Cocaine." 

Say the name Gordon Ramsay and, for most people, a potty-mouthed, angry English bloke in chef's whites springs to mind. Although he had grown weary of that persona by 2010, it remained stubbornly hard to shake off. However, in 2006, viewers got a glimpse of the "Hell's Kitchen" chef's underbelly. Throughout that year's season of U.K. series "The F Word," Ramsay had been fattening up two Berkshire sows specifically for slaughter: pet pigs Trinny and Susannah, named after two popular British fashion journalists. By August, the animals were ready for the abattoir, and the process would be documented by the show's cameras as well as watched by Ramsay himself. 

The year before, the chef had slaughtered six of his pet turkeys for "The F Word," prompting several complaints from viewers. This episode aired after 9 p.m. because the U.K. regulatory watershed for programmes deemed unsuitable for children. After watching the pigs being killed, Ramsay said: "The whole operation is extraordinary. Quite emotional in a way ... Next I will think of something really nice to cook with them in a way that can make me a little happier right now. But it's not a nice experience."

Life has thrown lots of curve balls at Gordon Ramsay over the past 30 years, both personal and professional. Throughout them all, his wife Tana has been firmly at his side. However, the couple, who married in 1996, were left heartbroken in 2016 when Tana, who was 20 weeks pregnant, had a miscarriage.

The baby boy was called Rocky and she described him on Instagram as "born with a strong heartbeat, but too little to survive." In a later interview with People magazine, Ramsay said: "There's no book that guides you through that loss, and so losing Rocky was really tough. Watching the trauma unfold, it's this life-changing moment."

Despite the devastating blow, Rocky's passing brought the Ramsays and their children closer together. The family all wear a piece of jewelry bearing his name, while their Cornwall home is also named after him. Three years later, the couple welcomed their fifth child. Ramsay said: "We wouldn't have had Oscar had we not lost Rocky. There was no substitute — far from it — but it brought us a bond that you'd never experience in a normal situation."

The "Kitchen Nightmares" star has had his fair share of run-ins with colleagues and customers throughout his career, but his feud with British cook Jamie Oliver was among the most enduring. The pair's spat began after Ramsay's unkind comments about Australian journalist Tracy Grimshaw, with Oliver noting the foolishness of criticizing a well-loved personality in their own country.

Everyone has their own way of doing things – seasoning to taste is a good example — but Ramsay hit back by attacking the younger man's culinary skills. He told OK: "Everything kind of gets mixed in – hands in. It's a very different style to me. He sticks it in the oven, comes back three hours later and it's done. We cook differently. I use basic ingredients, taken up with a lot more excitement."

The bitterness between the pair reached a new low in 2017 when Oliver responded to Ramsay's jibes about him while hosting "The Nightly Show." The Essex star made an offhand comment about the number of children he and Ramsay had. Unfortunately, it came after the devastating loss of baby Rocky. Two years later, the duo patched up their differences shortly after Oliver's business empire collapsed. Ramsay told U.K. TV chat show host Jonathan Ross: "I don't think anyone likes to revel in that kind of failure. The bottom line is, he's a great guy, great chef, and it was sad to see him disappear overnight."