Jamie Oliver is more than just a TV chef, he’s a brand. The outgoing Essex bloke who left school at the age of 16 with two GCSEs is, behind Harry Potter creator JK Rowling, the second-best-selling British author, with over 30 books to his name.
Despite a major wobble in 2019, when his Jamie’s Italian chain was forced to close 22 restaurants with the loss of more than 1,000 jobs, he’s also a successful restaurateur. The Jamie Oliver restaurant group operates dozens of locations across Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and India.
He also runs restaurant Fifteen to offer an apprenticeship for teenagers from underprivileged backgrounds – earning him an MBE in the 2003 Queen’s Birthday Honours – and is a tireless campaigner for healthy eating.
But somehow, amid all this activity, Jamie still finds time for a hobby. And it’s one that his wife Jools most definitely does not approve of. In fact, he told US talk show host Sherri Shepherd that Jools has threatened to “leave him” if he takes his new hobby much further.
View 3 ImagesThe couple have been married for over 25 years and have five kids(Image: Stuart C. Wilson, Getty Images for Disney)
Jamie told Sherri: “I’ve just worked very hard for 30 years and I haven’t really had any time for hobbies or myself, so I randomly started flying.” He explained that he hasn’t yet gained his private pilot’s licence but has already undertaken a few solo flights.
Because so much of Jamie’s life has involved multitasking – whether in a busy professional kitchen, running a business or even sitting behind a drum kit – flying represents an “invigorating” change of pace, he says. While he’s at the controls of a plane he can “only think of one thing.”
But while Jamie finds the experience of flying a light aircraft liberating, Jools has a quite different point of view, she revealed: “She hates it. She she saw me looking at some planes the other day and said ‘If you buy a plane, I’ll leave you’.”
View 3 ImagesJools did buy Jamie a flying lesson as a gift(Image: Eamonn McCormack, WireImagevia Getty Images)
Speaking to DJ Chris Moyles Jamie said that Jools had, in a way, been responsible for his new passion: “She did buy me like a test day as a birthday present about five years ago,” he said.
“She bought me two lessons, and I never took it up. And I didn’t really know, and I drive past it when I drop the kids off to school.”
He told listeners: “it’s not what you think it is. It’s this incredible patchwork quilt of airfields around the country, of these people that are just obsessed by adventure and navigating and aviation. And it’s the cutest thing ever!”
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Jamie said that he was given the chance to fly the plane by himself. He said: “I got out of my class – I did five take offs, five landings. He goes, ‘Pull over here.’ He goes, ‘Right. I’m getting out now. You’re doing your first solo. You’re on your own, Jack Jones.’ You know, ‘1,000 feet doing a six-mile circuit!'”
Although he was initially worried, Jamie said that he felt ready to fly solo. “All I think about is ‘one thing’, or die,” he said. Jamie added: “I was ready for it, but I’ve never perspired so much in my life. Sweat came out of parts of me that I didn’t know existed”