Stop using your kids to make money, Jamie Carluccio roasts chef over online ‘exploitation’
Tv Chef Jamie Oliver has never been shy about thrusting his wife and five children into the media limelight. But his decision to forfeit his family’s privacy for commercial gain has caused a rift with his former mentor, Antonio Carluccio. The king of Italian cuisine, who gave Jamie his first job aged 18 as a pastry chef at Terence Conran’s Neal Street Restaurant in Covent Garden, has turned on his protege and accused him of exploiting his kids for fame to help him amass a £240 million fortune.
‘It’s too much. I don’t know why he does it,’ says Carluccio, 80.
‘I know how social media works, and I know that he does it to promote his work, but it’s not fair on his family,
‘His children aren’t making that choice and maybe when they grow up they will be upset he used them.’
Jamie’s children are already saddled with unusual monikers — Poppy Honey Rosie, 15, Daisy Boo Pamela, 14, Petal Blossom Rainbow, eight, Buddy Bear Maurice, six, and River Rocket, nine months.
But they also have to endure having their pictures posted on social media and having intimate details of their private lives divulged in interviews.
This week, Oliver, who has six million followers, posted this snap of son, River (right), wearing a white bathrobe emblazoned with his name. Within hours, it attracted more than 105,000 ‘likes’ and 600 comments.
‘I don’t have any children — that I know of,’ adds Carluccio, who was married to Sir Terence Conran’s sister Priscilla for 28 years until 2009, when she was granted a ‘quickie’ divorce because of his adultery.
‘But if I had children, I wouldn’t use them to get more famous. Jamie knows what I think about him doing it. I don’t hide my opinion.’