Jamie Oliver has said his 12-year-old son Buddy will "earn his trade" if he chooses to become a chef and won’t live off his name like a "Nepo Baby".
Celebrity chef Oliver, 47, who released his first children’s book Billy and the Giant Adventure last Thursday, said despite Buddy already getting a head start wih his popular Cooking Buddies series on social media, he’ll be putting in the hard graft when older.
“The only way to do it, is to do it properly,” said The Naked Chef star.
“The technical and practical side of cooking is one thing, but the really interesting and emotional thing about cooking is serving people, immersing yourself with food growers and farmers – you can’t fake that.”
He continued to MailOnline: “When I ran the restaurant Fifteen, where most of our young people were unemployed, from prison or troubled backgrounds.
“We put these kids in front of amazing farmers and artisans, fishermen and producers, that’s what changes you and I’d definitely do that with Buddy, if he wanted to go down that route. He would earn his trade for sure.”
Depite the chraismatic youngster’s cooking tutorials raking in millions of views and fans praising him as a natural on camera, Buddy has not committed to a future as a chef.
And Oliver has downplayed the boy’s seemingly natural cooking talents, insisting it’s just all from practice.
He explained: "When he was ten, and you can find this online, he filleted a mackerel.
“It’s not because he’s a special kid, it’s because kids are brilliant and when they repeat things a few times, they get good at it.
“Whether it’s cricket, boxing or gymnastics, and he happened to have a mackerel in his hand, which is a cheap fish that’s bloody good for you, and he cooked it for his brother River, crispy skins 90 per cent of the way...
“When I take him down the market on a Saturday, he’s had 70-year-old men saying, ‘I’ve never really been into your old man, but I saw you do that video and came here and brought mackerel.’
“He has that effect on people, particularly the older generation. I’m really proud of him, he’s a good kid."
Oliver and his wife Jools share four other children, Poppy, 21, Daisy, 20, Petal, 14, and River, six.
