Ramsay: Mother-in-law told my wife to leave me

Gordon Ramsay said today his mother-in-law told his wife to leave him before she would be welcome back into the family fold.

In the latest public airing of the TV chef’s family woes, Ramsay also said he felt betrayed by his father-in-law and former business partner Christopher Hutcheson, with whom he fell out spectacularly last month.

“I feel I have been let down twice. First by my own father who was not a great guide in life. Now by Chris,” he told The Daily Mail.

Ramsay, who has been married to wife Tana for 14 years, said he received a letter from her mother, Greta Hutcheson on Monday, his 44th birthday.

He told the paper: “The letter, which arrived on Gordon’s 44th birthday, said: ’Tana, you are not welcome anywhere near our door. I cannot believe that you have done this to your father.

“Until you dispose of that man, you are not welcome back’.”

“Basically, she was saying, get rid of Gordon. Get rid of me. That was the thing that tipped me over the edge.

“My back was turned and they were jumping on Tana, using her as a target to manipulate and poison.

“Hoping she would just lift up the kids – my four children! – and jump in with them. And hang me out to dry because I had sacked her father.”

Taking aim at his father-in-law, who was sacked from the Ramsay business empire last month, the three Michelin-starred chef said: “Twelve years ago, he (Chris) was a perfect iceberg for me to step on to.

“In many ways, he filled a huge void in my life. And everyone got on with him. I wanted to be guided – but over the years his control became overbearing.”

He added: “It was so claustrophobic.

“(Tana) is certainly getting up to speed. That is a little scary – she knows about 90 per cent.

“She has been shocked. She struggled. It is a big blow. She had the perfect image of her daddy and it is not there.

“However, it has made our marriage stronger.”

Ramsay’s interview follows the publication in a newspaper earlier this week of an open letter from him to his mother-in-law in which he asked her to stop “punishing” her daughter.

That was preceded by a no-holds-barred newspaper interview with Mr Hutcheson, 62, containing a series of allegations about the chef’s behaviour.

He said he had been subject to a “public hanging” and called Ramsay, whose company has been hit by heavy losses, “a monster”.