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CELEBRITY NEWS AND GOSSIP
Will Ramsay’s empire crumble?
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We wouldn’t like to be Gordon Ramsay at the moment. The celebrity chef is keeping his head down, it seems, following News of the World allegations that he had an affair, while pundits speculate on whether his empire will crumble.
The star was due to make an appearance on The Paul O’Grady Show, which was to be filmed live on Monday, but pulled out at short notice, refusing to answer questions about his marriage.
"It's all going to come down to whether the media can drive a wedge between him and his wife,” James Herring, a leading TV publicist, told The Independent. “As long as they're grinning through photo opportunities and presenting a united front then it's business as usual."
"In the Noughties, people like celebrities to be as real life and near the knuckle as he is. People like warts and all, with living and breathing relationship problems and medical issues and all the other things people have at home."
Meanwhile Richard Harden, co-publisher of Harden's Restaurant Guide, thought the claims would “damage the package”. "In the long term it is a weevil burrowing into the carefully built structure that is Gordon Ramsay."
PR guru Max Clifford disagreed. "I don't think it will make a blind bit of difference to his image and popularity at all,” he said. "It might cause a lot of aggravation at home, I would be astonished if it doesn't."
Clifford added that alleged mistress Sarah Symonds had contacted him several times this year and wanted to launch a TV career off the back of her adultery manual Having an Affair? A Handbook for the Other Woman. "She was extremely bright, very intelligent and articulate and extremely ambitious, and determined to make a name for herself," he said. Mission accomplished, eh?
by Will Parkhouse, Tuesday 25 November 2008
Sources: Metro, Daily Telegraph, The Independent
