MARCO THE MOVIE
STARRING MICHAEL FASSBENDER* AS MARCO ‘ TWO CLEAVERS’ PIERRE WHITE
‘Mati supported my dream and she made great sacrifices,’ he concedes graciously. ‘She also gave me three wonderful children.’
But during the marriage, Mati accused Marco of cheating on her (for the record, he swears he was never unfaithful), and the couple’s rows made frequent headlines in the tabloids.
‘Things with Mati are very good now,’ he insists. ‘It’s about respect, and I respect Mati for being a really great mother. Lots of people separate – it’s very easy to separate. Maybe I didn’t work hard enough.’
Then, of course, there have been the many feuds with fellow chefs.
Marco famously fell out with his old boss Albert Roux when Roux, his best man at his second wedding, didn’t vote for Marco in an awards ceremony. And he still refuses to speak to his one-time protegé Gordon Ramsay.
‘I stopped talking to Gordon because he brought a camera crew to my wedding.’ This was on the occasion of his third wedding, to Mati, when Ramsay hid in some nearby bushes with his team. (It remains unclear why he did it.)
‘But I am over feuds and politics these days. I’m growing older, not younger. Life’s too short for rows, fame and nonsense,’ Marco insists.
It certainly appears as though his wild days are a thing of the past.
In The Devil In The Kitchen, he recalls taking women to his office above Harvey’s for something that wasn’t on the menu, but these days he is committed to Emilia.
He now advertises Knorr stock cubes and travels widely – he will spend three weeks filming MasterChef in Australia in the run-up to Christmas. It was while filming the show Down Under in 2012 that Marco decided to tame some of his hell-raising ways by abandoning a host of friendships.
‘I left my home in London on October 30, 2012, and came back in March 2013. During the drive to
‘My mother would have been horrified’
the MasterChef studios I went through my phone and started deleting numbers of people I didn’t feel enriched my life any more. By the end, I had eliminated 500 numbers. It was very cathartic.
‘When I came home I was a different man and I decided to leave London. I’m naturally an introvert but I was more reclusive after Australia. I’ve never liked crowds and parties. What I enjoy is spending time with ordinary people – my builders and gardeners.
‘I’m so over awards ceremonies and showbusiness parties. I’ve always loved fishing, deer stalking and planting things, and that is the life I have chosen.
‘I’m a country boy at heart. As a little boy I used live in my wellington boots, partly because they were all my parents could afford.’
The firebrand chef has two restaurants in Dublin; Marco Pierre White’s on Dawson St and The Courtyard in Donnybrook.
His latest project is a boutique hotel called The Rudloe Arms in Corsham, Wiltshire.
He has overseen an extensive refurbishment, and Emilia’s influ- ence, including a ‘kissing gate’, is clear. ‘Emilia loves it here. She says it really feels like home. For me it is home and I don’t miss London at all, but Emilia still lives there and I can’t persuade her to move, but we make things work.’
Emilia is 13 years younger than Marco. But the chef is unperturbed. ‘Age is just a number, isn’t it,’ he shrugs, drawing on one of his Marlboro cigarettes.
‘We can’t retain youth and beauty. It’s who we are that matters. I know myself better these days. My priorities have changed. My children, Emilia and little Rose are without doubt the most important things in my life. I still have the same insecurities I had at 10, but I’ve learned to deal with them.
‘I’m far from perfect. I’m sure my mother would have been horrified by my conduct at times.’