Jamie Oliver: Dyslexia made me a success – and it should be celebrated

HE has amassed a £150million fortune as a celebrity chef and best-selling author.

Yet according to Jamie Oliver, pictured below, the secret to his success was not his skill in the kitchen but his dyslexia.

The 42-year-old star said he believes the learning difficulty, which makes it difficult to read, write and spell, made him think ‘differently’ and work hard.

Speaking about his 1999 TV series The Naked Chef, and book of the same name that sold two million copies, he said: ‘The show was such a success. It was like being in One Direction – nuts in so many ways.

‘I was 24 years old. I was a special needs kid from Newport Grammar in Essex – it wasn’t a grammar school, it was a free grammar, a comp – how do you explain that?’

He added: ‘If I’m in a meeting I just see the problems differently and I obsess about things differently.

‘ Some bits of work need to be sweated over and cried over and crafted. Because I’m dyslexic, sometimes when it requires a load of stuff to be done, I just do it. It’s like I’m a massive ten-ton boulder rolling down the hill.’

Oliver, whose 20th book, Five Ingredients: Quick and Easy Food, was released last month, told Radio Times that dyslexia should be celebrated rather than seen as a handicap.

He said: ‘I genuinely think that when someone says to you, “Johnny’s got dyslexia”, you should get down on your knees, shake the child’s hand and say, “Well done, you lucky, lucky boy.”

‘[Success is] about finding something you’re good at. Ultimately, what do we all need? We need to be fed, hugged, shown a bit of love, and to be safe. Everything else on top of that is gravy, really.’