Gordon Ramsay begged his father-in-law for a £20,000 flat deposit when he was ‘skint’ – only to be told he should raise the money by selling his 911 Porsche instead, the star has revealed.
The celebrity TV chef, who has an OBE, said he and his wife Tana went to her father for a loan so they could buy a flat they ‘fell in love with’.
But the 56-year-old said Chris Hutcheson – who was later jailed for hacking Ramsay – said he should generate the funds by trading in his flash sports car, which range in price from around £100,000 to £234,000.
Ramsay, who married Tana in 1996, told the High Performance podcast it was ‘the best advice he ever gave me’ and he sold the car so they could buy a flat.
However the chef – who now owns homes in Bel Air, California and Wandsworth, South London – has been roasted on social media for being so out of touch, with one user commenting ‘I can’t believe I cancelled Netflix when this was all I had to do’.
He married broadcaster and author Tana, now 49, in 1996, whose father, Hutcheson, became chief executive of Ramsay’s empire before a bitter feud saw him jailed for six months, accused of trying to steal £1.4 million from his son-in-law.
But Ramsay revealed the ‘best advice’ he received from his father-in-law was ironically regarding his money.
He told the High Performance Podcast: ‘We were young, we were stupid and we were skint.
‘I remember going to ask her father if I could borrow £20,000 for the deposit for a flat that we fell in love with.
‘And I thought ‘this was all going well, lunch was good, I’ll pay for lunch’ and I said, ‘Oh about that deposit, Tana and I, we’ve got half of it but we need the other twenty grand. I’ll pay you back in a year.
‘He said, ‘Okay, here’s what I’ll do. I’ll have another lunch with you when you sell your Porsche’.
‘I thought, ‘You f***er but you clever f***er’.
‘Here I am driving around in a flash f***ing 911 and we didn’t even have a f***ing house, we didn’t have a flat, we didn’t have a roof over our heads.
‘It was the best advice he ever gave me, sell your f***ing Porsche.
‘I did sell it and ten years later I went and bought it back, the same f***ing car.’
The High Performance Podcast – presented by Jack Humphrey and Damian Hughes – have ‘entertainers and experts’ on to talk about ‘the key to their success’.
It says it ‘turns the lived experiences of the planet’s high performers into your life lessons.’
But listeners to the podcast ridiculed Ramsay for his life lesson, especially during the current housing crisis.
One user commented sarcastically: ‘Great advice. Next time I can’t afford something, I’ll make sure I don’t have a sports car lying around that I could sell.’
Another joked: ‘Struggling to put food on the table? Have you considered selling your Porsche?’
Ramsay was also recently slammed for promoting a designer set of saucepans worth £735 on his Instagram.
One user commented: ‘Great advice for these bloody millennials moaning about property prices and the cost of living.
‘Just need to stop eating avocado on toast and sell their Porsche’s. It’s easy.’
Another user on X, formally Twitter, said in disbelief: ‘In what world do you buy a Porsche before putting a deposit down on a house.
‘How do you ask someone for £20k borrow when you’re driving that about?’
Meanwhile, one fan commented: ‘Mind his father-in-law went to jail for six months for trying to rob him? That was cool.’
