In his first interview since his spectacular and poisonous feud with his father-in-law erupted, Gordon Ramsay lays bare how it threatened to destroy his marriage.

For more than a dozen years, Gordon Ramsay and his father-in-law Chris Hutcheson ran a hugely ­successful business.

Through the prism of Gordon Ramsay Holdings (GRH), they opened restaurants all over the world, where diners flocked to taste dishes inspired and devised by the man who became one of the most famous TV chefs of them all.

Tough decision: Gordon Ramsay realised he had to sack his father-in-law to not only progress, but save his business

The two men were closer than father and son, running the business on little more than trust and phone calls. Yet on the menu closer to home, unknown to everyone, a dreadful stew of lies, deceit and millions of pounds has been simmering on the back burner for the past few years.

Now, it has boiled over into a terrible family war. ‘And there is no going back,’ Ramsay told me.

After losing track of millions he’d personally sunk into the GRH empire, he felt he had no choice but to sack his father-in-law, which he did last month. Some expert advice he received only strengthened his resolve.

‘The best financial advisers said to me: ‘‘Gordon, would you still employ this individual if he was not your father-in-law?’’ I answered the ­question in seconds. In the negative,’ he says.

‘Chris was so controlling, so overbearing, so incestuous that the only way out was to cut the ties. There is never a gentle form of negotiations with him. You’re in or out, black or white. I was not going to do this half-heartedly.’

Part of the problem — and as we shall see there were many, many ­problems — was that various people Ramsay refers to as ‘Hutcheson’s dependants’ were benefiting from the business with Hutcheson’s ­encouragement, but not always ­Ramsay’s approval.

‘They were taking the p***,’ is how ­Ramsay puts it, with ­characteristic brio.

Bitter rift: Greta and Chris Hutcheson’s relationship with their son-in-law Gordon Ramsay is shattered due some tough decisions the TV chef felt he had to take
Bitter rift: Greta and Chris Hutcheson’s relationship with their son-in-law Gordon Ramsay is shattered due some tough decisions the TV chef felt he had to take

Yet not even Ramsay was prepared for the course the usually reclusive Hutcheson would embark upon after being fired.

To the surprise of many, he gave an explosive interview to the Mail on ­Sunday, in which he accused Ramsay of being a monster and hinted at knowing where the ‘bodies are ­buried’.

For good measure, he even floated the notion Ramsay had mood swings that might be put down to drugs.

Then matters got worse this week. The chef responded by writing an extraordinary open letter to his mother-in-law, Greta Hutcheson, ­published in the pages of a London newspaper.

It was littered with dark hints about Hutcheson’s private life, which ­Ramsay described as ‘complex’. Put it this way: If Greta thought she knew everything about her husband, then she must doubt that now.

Many commentators, including myself, thought that Ramsay had flipped. Why swing such a wrecking ball in the heart of a family that was already fractured? It seemed crazy and reeked of hubris.

Now, in his first interview since the scandal began, the beleaguered chef reveals that, behind the scenes, he was fighting for his professional and family life.

He believed that his wife’s mind was being poisoned against him by her family. And that Chris Hutcheson would stop at nothing, up to and including taking Tana and the ­children away from him.

After two years of frustration and growing suspicion — the suspicions that had resulted in Hutcheson’s sacking and the difficult family dynamic — matters reached a crux on Monday, Gordon’s 44th birthday.

Ramsay says he thought they were over the worst — and then Tana received a letter from her mother.

‘Chris’s away days became more of a permanent fixture.’
The letter said: ‘Tana, you are not ­welcome anywhere near our door. I cannot believe that you have done this to your father. Until you dispose of that man, you are not welcome back.’

‘Basically, she was saying, get rid of Gordon. Get rid of me. That was the thing that tipped me over the edge,’ says Ramsay, who is in New York ­filming Kitchen Nightmares.

Indeed, since Hutcheson’s sacking, the chef had become increasingly ­worried that Tana was being put under pressure from her family to leave him, particularly when he was out of the country on business.

So no, Ramsay does not regret the open letter sent to the newspaper. On the contrary, he feels he had to do something drastic to stop the rot.

‘My back

was turned and they were jumping on Tana, using her as a ­target to manipulate and poison. Hoping she would just lift up the kids — my four children! — and jump in with them. And hang me out to dry because I had sacked her father.

‘So it was becoming harder for me to do nothing. I was screaming inside: ‘‘Hey guys, this is an argument between Chris and me. Now you are trying to get personal with this. There is no way on earth you are going to start ­fragmenting my family.’’

‘But they saw the weak point. They hoped to break down Tana, convince her that this is the right way. I don’t know any other guy, any husband or father, who would stand there and take those blows on a daily basis.’

Harsh reality: Gordon Ramsay, appearing in one of his many publicity shots for his TV shows, realised he had to take stock of his empire

How did it get to this stage? From the outside, the row looks like an eruption of egos: two old stags clashing under the pressure of a business that has suffered, like any other, in the economic downturn.
Yet today, Ramsay reveals that the saga stretches back almost three years. He believes that his relationship with chefs such as Marcus Wareing and Jason Atherton would never have soured if Hutcheson had not been so bullish and greedy in dealing with them.
He is appalled at some of the ­business dealings he has uncovered. And his concerns about Hutcheson’s behaviour, on a personal and professional level, stretch back a long way.
‘His level of concentration. His excuses for disappearing. All ­matters for concern. ‘‘Where is Chris?’’ I would ask and be told he was in Paris for three days, sorting out the restaurant. Funny, I would think. We have already done that.

‘Then I would ring up Paris and say: ‘‘Can I speak to Chris? I hear he is there for the weekend.’’ Only to be told that Chris hadn’t been there for six months.

‘The away days were becoming more of a permanent fixture and there was less focus on the hands- on approach that the business needed to lock it down, such as the York & Albany pub, which needed to be focused on.’

Central to part of Ramsay’s ­discomfort is the fact that ­his two brothers-in-law — and other people Ramsay calls Hutcheson’s ‘dependants’ — were profiting
from GRH in a way that the hard-working chef increasingly became uncomfortable with.

He walked into the company headquarters one day to discover that Adam Hutcheson — hired to help out with the pubs business — had been made the managing ­director of GRH.