"I don’t want to name-drop,” a pal said, as he finished a story about partying with will.i.am. “But Andrew Lloyd Webber said to me last week, ‘look, it’s Jamie Oliver. He’ll automatically get a spanking from the press.’ Be kind."
Perhaps. As it is, Google News records 64 positive Oliver press stories from the past week which — call me a cynic — smacks of publicity bods flooding the internet in the hope of hiding bad reviews. Banning Turkey Twizzlers aside (worse than Maggie and the milk, I reckon), Oliver’s been a target since the 2019 crumbling of his British restaurant empire, which left debts of £83 million and a reported 1,000 staff out of work. The chef himself was ruined.
