Pictured: Jamie Oliver on The Naked Chef during its second series in 2000
Born to pub owners Trevor and Sally Oliver in Clavering, Essex, Jamie Oliver practised cooking in the kitchen with his parents and sister.
A severe dyslexic, he left school at 16 with two GCSEs.
He went on to attend Westminster Technical College, earning a qualification in home economics, before getting a job as a pastry chef at the London restaurant of Italian cook Antonio Carluccio.
He first hit TV screens aged 23 on The Naked Chef, establishing his reputation as a cheeky, laid-back cook from Essex.
The BBC series was praised at the time for inspiring men to cook. It first aired on April 14th in 1999 and ran for three series and including Christmas specials.
Jamie met his wife, Juliette — known as Jools — at college in 1993 when the pair were just 18.
They married in Essex in June 2000, with a low-key reception in Jamie’s parents’ garden, to which the chef wore a pale blue Paul Smith suit and snakeskin brogues.
Jools worked as a waitress before becoming a TV assistant, model and, briefly, her husband’s PA.
The couple have five children – Poppy Honey Rosie, 17; Daisy Boo Pamela, 15; Petal Blossom Rainbow, 10; Buddy Bear Maurice, eight; and River Rocket Blue Dallas, two.
He went on to present more than 25 cooking series, spearheading a campaign for improved nutrition in school meals.
Oliver (pictured in 2002), first hit TV screens aged 23 on The Naked Chef, establishing his reputation as a cheeky, laid-back cook from Essex
Jamie famously waged war on Turkey Twizzlers in 2005, when he visited Westminster to speak with politicians about his healthy school dinners campaign.
The chef also released a host of accessible cookery books, including ‘Jamie’s 15 Minute Meals’ and ‘Everyday Super Food’.
He opened his first Jamie’s Italian in Oxford in 2008, growing it to more than 60 restaurants worldwide.
In 2017 the restaurant chain lost almost £20million and was forced to close several of its branches.
It teetered on the edge of bankruptcy last year before the chef injected £12.7million of his savings into the business.
He cited rents, rates, the high street declining, food costs, Brexit and an increase in the minimum wage as potential factors.
That year he closed the last of his Union Jacks eateries and scrapped his magazine Jamie, which had been in print for almost 10 years. The father-of-five went on to describe that year as the worst of his life.
By 2018, Jamie’s Italian was struggling with debts of £71.5million. More than 600 people lost their jobs earlier this year the chain said it would close 12 sites.
Today he announced that his restaurant group had gone into administration. Jamie’s Italian, Barbecoa and Fifteen have appointed KPMG to oversee the process.
Despite his financial woes, Jamie recently splashed out £6 million on a 16th century Essex mansion, in a 70-acre estate, complete with ghost. He’s reportedly planning to convert outhouses into a mega-kitchen from which he can film shows and hold his masterclasses.
He and Jools spent £8.9 million on a Grade II-listed mansion near Hampstead Heath, north London, in 2016, and spent two years renovating it.
It boasted seven bedrooms, an open-plan kitchen with cream Aga, a grand piano and a Louis XV-style bed worth £2,200, it’s certainly impressive.
The Olivers have fitted the house with some quirky features, including a wood-fired pizza oven, a treehouse bed and a vegetable patch for the children.
Jamie hired his brother-in-law, Paul Hunt, married to his sister Anna-Marie, to run Jamie Oliver Ltd in 2014 — and last year Hunt assumed responsibility for the restaurants, too.
But some of his methods — such as making staff redundant over Christmas and cutting ties with Jamie’s friends and culinary mentors — have led to a reputation for ruthlessness.
Last year, an anonymous insider described him as an ‘arrogant, incompetent failure’ who was ‘running the business into the ground’.
Jamie rebutted the claims, saying the story was ‘nonsense’ and that Paul was ‘a loyal brother-in-law and loving father as well as a strong and capable CEO’.
Jamie (pictured in 2013) famously waged war on Turkey Twizzlers in 2005, when he visited Westminster to speak with politicians about his healthy school dinners campaign