Jamie Oliver rose to fame on BBC’s The Naked Chef, which was filmed in the London flat he shared with his now-wife Jools Oliver, but she was surprisingly absent from the first series of the show.
Jamie Oliver and his wife Jools are childhood sweethearts who first met when they were teenagers growing up in Essex. They got married in 2000 and now share five children; Petal Blossom, Poppy Honey, Daisy Boo, Buddy Bear, as well as the youngest, River Rocket.
Jools has supported the TV chef throughout his career and sudden rise to fame, which began on the BBC cookery programme The Naked Chef back in 1999.
The then-23-year-old Jamie was being recorded at his flat, which he shared with Jools, yet she was conspicuously missing from the programme’s opening series.
The presenter of Channel 4‘s Jamie’s 20 Minute Meals has now revealed that Jools was deliberately kept away from filming because “the middle-aged BBC executives didn’t want me to have a girlfriend”.
Speaking on The Splendid Table podcast earlier this year, Jamie explained he was ultimately granted greater creative freedom once The Naked Chef achieved massive popularity.
He recalled: “They were just following my life and instead of filming in a studio, they filmed in the flat that I rented, and I actually lived there.
“And for the first season, the kind of middle-aged BBC executives didn’t want me to have a girlfriend. Jools didn’t exist in the first series, so, obviously, you know, that was interesting.
“But then, as The Naked Chef went out and it was huge, a little bit more permission came my way and I was slightly less naive.”
“And the whole series, like, Jools was in my bedroom downstairs kind of waiting for production to finish and get out of the house so we could just have a house again!”.
Despite the challenge of concealing his relationship at the time, Jamie described his stint on the BBC programme as “amazing”. He added: “It was amazing, and I was grateful, and I was excited to be living in London as a country boy. I was excited to be in love and be with my Mrs.”
Jamie’s wife of 26 years recently came forward with a diagnosis of both autism and ADHD, revealing that failing to understand her neurodivergence has “ruined” her life for the past 45 years.
The mother-of-five opened up during a podcast appearance on Lessons From Our Mothers: “It’s no superpower. It’s just a drain and it’s just really hard work.”
Jools chose to pursue autism testing following her attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnosis, after recognising that she shares certain behavioural traits with some of her and Jamie’s children, who had also received autism diagnoses.
She decided to share her diagnosis with friends and family via an invitation to her 50th birthday party last year. Jools, who struggles with social anxiety, admitted: “My 50th birthday invite, I decided to come out.”
Jools said she told her other half: “Jamie, I’m going to tell everyone that I’m not normal because I put on such a great act of being really like, ‘Woo,’ and so social. In fact, it’s like my worst nightmare. I’m such an introvert.’”
She added that “a lot of people didn’t come and were turned off” by her revelation, but she came to the conclusion that “this is me. I’m afraid this is the new 50. This is it.’”
Jamie’s 20 Minute Meals airs on Monday 2nd November from 8pm on Channel 4.
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