Adam Ramsay-Peaty has said that he wants to reconcile with his estranged family following a reported rift – but wants to feel that “they’ve improved as people” before finding forgiveness.
The Olympic swimmer made headlines last year ahead of his wedding to Holly Ramsay, the daughter of TV chef Gordon Ramsay, when Ramsay-Peaty reportedly banned his mother from attending the ceremony after a row over Ramsay’s hen do.
Several months on, Ramsay-Peaty has now addressed whether he can mend his relationship with his mother, Caroline. In a new interview, the athlete, 31, said that “forgiveness takes time”.
“For me, as a Christian, there has to be forgiveness,” he told The Guardian in an interview on 1 August. “It doesn’t mean you have to forget, but forgiveness takes time. I’m not saying that it won’t get better but it has to come from a place where I feel like they’ve improved as people, in a sense, and opened that communication up.
“I haven’t told one thing to the media. I haven’t done one story over the last eight months and more.”
It comes after Peaty’s aunt, Louise Williams, publicly criticised Holly Ramsay for not inviting Caroline to her hen do at Soho Farmhouse in Chipping Norton, saying in November that the move was “divisive and hurtful” and that the famous family were “pulling him away from” Caroline.
Peaty and Ramsay married in December at Bath Abbey, however the swimmer’s parents were not in attendance. After the ceremony, Peaty announced on Instagram that he had changed his name to “Adam Ramsay Peaty” and in June, the couple announced that they are expecting their first child together.
Speaking about the news of his family rift going public last year, Peaty told The Guardian that it didn’t have a serious impact on him as he has “thick skin”, but he cares about his wife and his five-year-old son George, who he shares with ex-partner Eirianedd Munro.
“I care about the relationships that people think I have with my son, and my own family, but that’s my private life,” he said, adding that he has good relationships with certain media outlets. “The ones that don’t go well are with the tabloids selling these stories for advertising. It’s pretty much the downfall of society when we’re exploiting people’s private lives to sell.
“Will it get better? Probably not. Will the truth come out one day? Absolutely.”
Earlier this year, Gordon Ramsay described the feud with his son-in-law’s family as “upsetting”, telling the Daily Mail that he and his wife, Tana, “welcomed” Peaty when Holly began a relationship with him.
“It’s all self-inflicted from their side, because we’ve done nothing – none of what you’ve read: no rudeness, no ignorance – we welcomed them,” Ramsay said in February. “We sent a chauffeur-driven car for them to come to the engagement party and treated them like royalty.
“I would like to go up to Nottingham with Tana and see them and draw a line in the sand. It was Adam and Holly’s wishes for them not to attend [the wedding] and so we had to respect that.”
Ramsay-Peaty competed at the Commonwealth Games in July, taking home a bronze medal after an emotional defeat in the 100m breaststroke. Speaking on BBC Breakfast this week, he admitted: “I’ve got very tough skin that has been built quite aggressively over these last six months.
“I know what my values are, my morals are. I can look in the mirror and be at peace with myself and the person that I am.”
