He was propelled to fame as a bright-eyed blonde chef and is now a best-selling author with a £150million fortune.
Yet according to Jamie Oliver, the secret to his success was not his skill in the kitchen or his love of cooking – but his dyslexia.
The 42-year-old star said he believes the learning difficulty, which makes it difficult to read, write and spell, was the driving force behind the success of his multi-million pound business.
Jamie Oliver, who released his 20th book last month, says dyslexia became the driving force behind his multi-million pound empire
Speaking about how his first book, The Naked Chef, sold 2 million copies, he said: ‘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-tonne boulder rolling down the hill.’
Oliver, whose 20th book Five Ingredients: Quick and Easy Food was released last month, told the 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.”
[Long-term success is] about finding something that you’re good at. Because 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.’
He says difficulties reading, writing and spelling should be celebrated instead of being seen as a handicap
The celebrity chef, who has been with his wife Jools, 42, since they met on a double date at just 17, has excelled in multiple ventures. He has a restaurant empire of 48 eateries in the UK, he has had host of his own TV shows such as The Naked Chef and Jamie Oliver’s Great Britain and he now runs his own YouTube channel.
And in 2015 Oliver had shifted more than £150million worth of books – becoming the only British author after JK Rowling to do so.
But the father of five, who according to Sunday Times Rich List has seen his wealth plummet by £90million since 2014, did admit he has made plenty of mistakes along the way.
He said: ‘there was the pizza restaurant we opened and then closed, we f****d that up massively with the best pizza-maker on the planet.
‘I’ve made lots of business or financial mistakes. But painful as many of them can be there’s always been a massive amount of learning that I’ve taken on, so I’m quite philosophical about those things.’