Recently, Gordon Ramsay tried really, really hard to sound like a nice, normal, non-psychopathic individual in an interview with Britain’s Guardian. And guess what? He failed big time, then walked out. The interviewer can’t resist bringing up Gordo’s legal woes, the frequent incarceration and rehabilitation of Ramsay’s addict brother, and the obvious disconnect between things Ramsay supposedly wrote in an autobiography and the completely contradictory rants to which he is prone in real life. Even by Gordo’s standards, this is a doozy.
Ramsay is there to talk about his new show in England, Gordon Ramsay Behind Bars, in which he teaches inmates how to cook for his fledgling prison-based company, Bad Boys’ Bakery. Explaining how a Q&A; where Ramsay is tethered to a PR spokesperson still manages to derail so suddenly, author Decca Aikenhead writes, “Ramsay doesn’t seem to listen to anything much; instead, he hears the questions he assumes I must be asking, and as his imaginary ones are generally veiled attacks insinuating all manner of criticism, he gets angrier and angrier.”
Gordo gets wound up about all sorts of subjects (changing “nappies,” fighting with diners, his mum’s cooking), but has a particularly potent venom stored up for British prisoners and their “easy” life on the inside. Ramsay, who claims the prison governor treated him “like one of his bitches,” notes how upset he is over how good these guys really have it, while he had to do all the hard work.
Ramsay says, “What I wasn’t prepared for was how easy it was for them in there. I was astounded at the comfort zone they carve out for themselves. Five meal choices a night — that was the one I really struggled with. I just thought it was a bit of a joke, to be honest. Coupled with 24-hour television, Xbox, DVDs, gym. We can’t watch television until four o’clock in the morning. I’d like to have a gym seven days a week, by the way.”
We’re sure life for a celebrity chef is fairly frustrating compared to forced captivity and isolation from one’s family. You know, with all those soul-draining red carpet appearances and painful celebrity soccer tournies. Let’s just hope the new show is a huge success. That way, Ramsay can finally get that Xbox he’s pining away for and we might get to see him run his mouth in one of our fine state institutions in the near future.
Gordon Ramsay: appetite for destruction [Guardian U.K.]
