He was once brought to tears in the kitchen and he hates dinner parties.

Love him or hate him, you can’t deny that Gordon Ramsay has dominated the celebrity chef world for years.

Starting out in his 20s, he quickly made a name for himself as a chef and then later found his way to our TVs. His fiery temper and scathing comments to tearful contestants on “Hell’s Kitchen” and “Masterchef,” as well as hapless restaurant owners on “Kitchen Nightmares,” have made for satisfying — if terribly stressful — entertainment.

But there’s more to Ramsay than snarling insults and an unchecked barrage of F-bombs. Keep reading to find out some little-known facts about the hot-tempered chef-turned-TV-personality.

He Was Once Held At Gunpoint While Filming A TV Segment
For a 2011 episode of the British show “The Big Fish Fight,” in which Ramsay investigated the ingredients of shark fin soup, he traveled to Costa Rica to investigate the area’s illegal shark fin trade.

Ramsay claims he discovered a sack full of shark fins below a boat, and when he threw the sack on deck, “everyone started screaming and shouting,” he told The Telegraph. “Back at the wharf, there were people pointing rifles at us to stop us filming … The police came and advised us to leave the country. They said, ‘If you set one foot in there, they’ll shoot you.’”

He Is One Of The World’s Highest-Paid Celebrities
Between his restaurants and TV shows, Ramsay cooks up quite the annual salary. In 2016, he even tied with Beyoncé (and surpassed Kim Kardashian West!) for the 34th spot on Forbes’ list of highest-paid celebrities. His pull for that year was $54 million, and he increased his earnings to $60 million the following year, bumping up to No. 26 (tying with Elton John and Garth Brooks) on Forbes’ 2017 list.

In 2012, Forbes named Ramsay the highest-earning chef — although by 2017, he’d been bumped from the top spot by Paul Bocuse, Jamie Oliver and Alan Wong.

Ramsay And Mario Batali Have Beef — And Not The Medium-Rare Kind
The feud between Ramsay and fellow chef Mario Batali began when Batali insulted Ramsay’s food and Ramsay retaliated by calling Batali “Fanta Pants” back in 2008. (While it may seem like an innocent nickname, it’s actually a dig at Batali’s ginger hair.) Batali then banned Ramsay from all of his restaurants, though he has said that he’s open to making peace with his fellow chef — if Ramsay makes the first move.

“If he called me himself and said, ‘Let’s sit down for a drink’, I’m sure it would be fine,” Batali told The Guardian. “We’d be cool. But right now it’s not cool.”

His First Career Choice Was Professional Soccer Player
Like many young British boys, Ramsay originally aspired to be a professional soccer player. He has even claimed in the past that he played for Scotland’s Glasgow Rangers team until a knee injury snuffed out his pro-soccer-playing gooooooaaals. His claims are inaccurate, though the Rangers did apparently monitor Ramsay as a potential player when he was a teen before he suffered an injury.

He Has His Own Video Games
If watching Ramsay shriek at people on TV simply isn’t enough for you, check out these virtual worlds in which you can interact with the chef. For Nintendo Wii, there is a “Hell’s Kitchen” game, which features a depiction of Ramsay so lifelike that it may actually scare you. Or try Ramsay’s mobile game, Restaurant DASH, in which players use their virtual culinary skills and restaurant management prowess to become “the next rising star chef” — all under Ramsay’s stern mentorship. For those who thrive under pressure, these games are for you.

Gordon Ramsay’s Restaurant Dash
He Has Been Married For 22 Years
Ramsay is married to Cayetana “Tana” Hutcheson, a former teacher. Wed in 1996, the two have weathered some storms throughout their years of marriage, but none of the drama seems to have affected their union. In fact, after a scandalous feud between Ramsay and Tana’s father, Chris Hutcheson, the TV chef told The Sun, “We looked after each other. And it’s actually brought us — me, Tana and the children — closer than we’ve ever been before. Our marriage is stronger as a result of it all.”

He Is Rather Obsessed With Beef Wellington
Beef Wellington is so near and dear to Ramsay’s heart that there’s an entire section devoted to it on the website for Gordon Ramsay’s Restaurants — including recipes for making the classic meat-in-pastry dish at home. It also seems to be the dish he most enjoys berating his contestants for screwing up.

He Studied Hotel Management
After his soccer star dreams were dashed, Ramsay attended a technical school for a degree in

hotel management. So he does know a bloody thing or two about customer service! Of course, this knowledge came in handy when Ramsay tried to help rehabilitate struggling hoteliers in another one of his shows, “Hotel Hell.”

There Are Five Things He Thinks Everyone Should Be Able To Cook
You don’t need to be a world-class chef at home, but Ramsay believes there are five dishes everyone should learn how to cook. These include a great burger, a good breakfast, a chicken dish, a braising dish (the kind of thing “you can cook on a Monday and still eat on Friday,” he told curious Reddit users) and a great cake.

He Has Participated In Ironman Competitions
The knee injury that ended Ramsay’s soccer dreams certainly didn’t stop him from pursuing fitness as an adult. He has participated in over 15 marathons, three ultra-marathons, three half-Ironmans and two Ironman World Championships (which require running a full marathon, bicycling for 122 miles and swimming 2.4 miles). The reason he works out so hard? “Training is my release,” he told the Telegraph.

His Guilty Pleasure Junk Food Is Probably The Same As Yours
When asked during a Reddit Ask Me Anything whether he had a “guilty pleasure food,” Ramsay confessed that he, like so many of us mere mortals, is weak in the face of an In-and-Out burger. “I wish they were set up in London because if there’s one thing I miss flying out of LA, it’s an In and Out Burger [sic],” he wrote.

He Was The Head Chef At London’s Aubergine

After working under the careful tutelage of top chefs — like Joel Robuchon and Guy Savoy — Ramsay went to work at London’s Aubergine in 1993 as the restaurant’s head chef. He was 27 years old at the time. Under his guidance over the next three years, the restaurant earned a prized two-star rating from Michelin. Unfortunately, the restaurant has since closed.

He And His Wife Have 4 Children — Including A Set Of Twins
The eldest of the four Ramsay children is Megan, age 20, followed by fraternal twins, Holly and Jack, age 18. The youngest is Matilda, age 16. All of the Ramsay kids are good friends with David and Victoria Beckham’s children — but they are forbidden from dating them.

Getty Images | Eamonn M. McCormack
None Of The Kids Will Inherit Ramsay’s Money
In an effort not to spoil his children, Ramsay has openly declared that he won’t leave his fortune to his kids in his will. “It’s definitely not going to them, and that’s not in a mean way; it’s to not spoil them,” he told The Telegraph. He said that he and his wife agreed their children will each get a 25 percent deposit on an apartment someday, but that’s it.

He also won’t allow his children to join him in first class when they fly together: “They haven’t worked anywhere near hard enough to afford that. At that age, at that size, you’re telling me they need to sit in first class? No, they do not.”

He’s Had Cosmetic Surgery
Ramsay admitted that he had cosmetic surgery to fill in some wrinkles on his face. It seems that the chef grew irritated with all the critical remarks about his appearance that he received in the press … and from his children. “I was never embarrassed by it but my children helped me become more paranoid about it,” he told The Guardian in 2010. “You’ve seen the articles: craggy face, map of Wales, ugly, deflated rugby ball. There’s only so much sh*t you want to take. I woke up in the morning and [daughter] Matilda was trying to squeeze pound coins in there.”

He Has A Favorite Midnight Snack
Beans on toast is a classic British meal, so it’s no surprise that Ramsay’s favorite late-night snack is baked beans. Of course, he is not rummaging around for plain old beans in the middle of the night. When he has a hankering, he grills some sourdough bread, adds baked beans, garlic and hot sauce, and tops with a duck egg and Parmesan cheese. Sweet dreams!

He Has A Black Belt In Karate
Anyone who can’t verbally spar with Ramsay in the kitchen probably won’t want to challenge him to a physical fight either, as the chef is trained in martial arts and even has a black belt in karate. Apparently, it came in handy when a “Hells Kitchen” contestant tried to hit him.

His Daughter Has Her Own Food Show

Step aside, Pops, there’s a new TV chef in the Ramsay family! In 2015, Ramsay’s then-13-year-old daughter, Matilda, premiered her own cooking show titled “Matilda and the Ramsay Bunch.” Already spanning several seasons, the 15-minute episodes follow the Ramsay family on their cooking and traveling adventures. Now 16 years old, Matilda has also released her own cookbook, “Tilly’s Kitchen Makeover.”

There Is One Kind Of Food He Refuses To Eat
Although the chef has said that he’s open to trying any food once, there is one type of food he will not touch: airplane