Jamie Oliver’s wife Jools has admitted that is is “brutal” and “heartbreaking” to parent their teenage daughter.
The celebrity chef and former model, who met when they were 18 and have been married for 25 years, share daughters Poppy, 23, Daisy, 23, Petal, 16, and sons Buddy, 15, and River, eight.
Jools explained that it is “particularly brutal with girls and their mums” in the later teens years when emotions in the household are high.
“My 16-year-old isn’t particularly warm to me at the moment and it’s sort of heartbreaking,” she told Good Housekeeping.
“But I’ve done it twice over and I know not to be silly and to try to let it go. It’s hard when you’re living it, and 10 years is quite a long time to wait for them to come back to you, but they do”.
Oliver said that his wife “understandably takes it personally, and it’s not that I’m seeing it from a great distance, but I’ve learnt to step back when I can”.
The TV chef said that he is also experiencing a shift in his relationship with eldest son Buddy, who released his own cookbook Let’s Cook last year and has more than 87,000 followers on his Instagram page where he posts about cooking.
“He’s at an age where [sometimes it feels like] he’s almost fighting it because he thinks it’s imposed by me,” Oliver said of his son’s burgeoning culinary career.
He admitted that Buddy’s pursuits “might have been driven” by his own excitement at “having a partner in crime” to cook with.
Oliver was launched to stardom in his twenties on the BBC Two series The Naked Chef after he was noticed by the BBC in the 1997 documentary Christmas at the River Café.
He first met his wife when a friend convinced him to go on a double date with Jools when they were teenagers living in Essex. They later moved to London as a couple.
The chef has previously reflected on their enduring romance, stating: “Luckily, we were able to solidify our relationship before it all kicked off. Then we did it together.”
