CONFUSION surrounded the TV career of celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay last night after he apparently said he was planning to quit the small screen.
The fiery star of a trio of ratings-topping reality TV cooking shows said that broadcasting was taking up too much of his time and he wanted to do more shifts in his kitchens.
The Scots-born chef, who has also said that he is keen to leave the UK
for a new life in Dubai, was reported yesterday saying he wants to retire from "television".
The news will come as a huge blow to the colourful chef's legion of fans who enjoy his passionate approach to cooking and his valiant on-screen attempts to turn around ailing catering businesses in Britain and the US.
The chef has now had three hit TV shows: The F Word, a topical food show produced by Channel 4, Hell's Kitchen, a reality TV cooking competition, and Kitchen Nightmares, a business makeover show produced by Channel 4 and later by Fox in the US.
The F Word, currently in a new season, attracts 2.5 million viewers, an 11% share of the peak-time 9pm slot for Channel 4. Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares USA has around 3.4 million viewers in the UK despite a late slot in the schedules.
In a newspaper interview yesterday, Ramsay, 41, said the new series of Kitchen Nightmares he has just signed up for will be his TV swan song.
"I'm going to make it my last. The Bafta (for Kitchen Nightmares) was phenomenal but I want to quit while it is really going good and move on."
He added: "I'm not a broadcaster, I'm a chef."
However, his agent said last night: "He's not quitting TV or Nightmares as far as I know. It's not something he's said to me.
"I have not seen the interview and I have no way of checking it with him. I certainly have not heard that he has any plans to do that."
The full article contains 343 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
