Jamie Oliver has always been divisive. Some heralded him as the saviour of children’s health for his war on turkey twizzlers, while others saw him as short-sighted for claiming that poor families waste money on ready meals when they could be eating healthily on the cheap. The chef has found himself at the centre of a number of controversies over the years, due to everything from culinary appropriation to rage at his unsolicited breastfeeding advice.
Most recently Oliver has come under fire for “stereotyping” the experience of First Nations Australians in his new children’s book, Billy and the Epic Escape. The 416-page novel contains a bizarre subplot in which an evil witch teleports to Alice Springs in remote northern Australia and kidnaps an indigenous child. The ensuing plot then conflates different Indigenous Australian cultures and languages. and employs stereotypes about “the indigenous way”. The book has been criticised by First Nation Australian advocacy groups, who describe it as a “trivialisation” of Indigenous culture. In a statement to The Guardian, Oliver and his publisher, Penguin Random House, have apologised “unreservedly” and called it an “editorial oversight”. The book has now been withdrawn.
This is not the first time Jamie Oliver has found himself in the hot seat. In 2016 Oliver was labelled a “mansplainer” for advocating that mothers should breastfeed their children. Speaking on LBC radio, Oliver said that the “we have the worst breastfeeding in the world”, even though “it’s easy, it’s more convenient, it’s more nutritious, it’s better, it’s free”. While some were in agreement with Oliver’s sentiments, others felt he was not necessarily the best person to dispense postnatal advice. “We didn’t know what to do with our nipples until Jamie Oliver popped his head above the parapet,” joked one female LBC phone-in, while others pointed out that not all women can breastfeed.
I'm not planning on starting a campaign around breastfeeding. pic.twitter.com/vRGi1ud8By
— Jamie Oliver (@jamieoliver) March 18, 2016
Oliver took to Twitter to clarify his comments. “I understand that breastfeeding is often not easy and in some cases not even possible but just wanted to support women who DO want to breastfeed and make it easier for them to do so.” Oliver is a father of five and added that he “would never wish to offend women or mums as I knows [sic] how incredible they are and I would get a kicking when I got home!’
The Naked Chef has managed to be a divisive character on a whole range of issues over the years. Later that year he elicited the ire of Spaniards for putting a sausage-y twist on a classic dish. “Good Spanish food doesn’t get much better than paella. My version combines chicken thighs & chorizo,” he wrote in a now-deleted tweet, with an accompanying picture of a rather pale, risotto-esque paella. Innocuous though it may seem, all hell broke loose. Users suggested their own twists on British classics, like fish and chips with aubergines, while others compared Oliver’s update on the paella to the infamous botched restoration of a fresco of Jesus.
Oliver later appeared on the Graham Norton show and said he had received death threats over paella-gate. Unperturbed, he added: "By the way, just FYI, it tastes better with chorizo."
— Foquito de Luz 💡🕯️🏮 (@churreznos) October 4, 2016
Rage for Oliver made its way from Catalonia to Caledonia when the chef advocated for Scottish supermarkets to end two-for-one deals on junk food. The chef met with then first minister Nicola Sturgeon to discuss ways of tackling childhood obesity and following the meeting Sturgeon pledged to scrap multi-buy promos on things like pizzas. While the move was praised by cancer charities and health chiefs, the mood online was rather different. “f*** off you salad sh***er,” read one viral tweet, while others characterised it as an “attack on the poor”. “Jamie Oliver wants weans in Scotland to only eat dust. He is a threat to our national security,” one person wrote.
2019 was something of an annus horribilis for Oliver after his eponymous restaurant group collapsed. This led to the closure of 22 of his Jamie’s Italian and Barbecoa restaurants and the loss of around 1000 jobs. Staff blamed poor management and said that the news was unceremoniously borne, with some only given an hour’s notice over email that they had been sacked. Oliver poured £13 million of his own money into the restaurant chain in an attempt to save it, but still got flak for moving into a £6m mansion around the time the business went under.
Oliver has driven positive change around children’s eating, food waste and sustainability for the last two decades. Despite a number of hiccups and failed ventures, he has a phoenix-like ability to rise from the ashes, even if it means ruffling a few feathers along the way.
