I’ve got a bad feeling about Gordon Ramsay – is the man finally losing the plot? Are his antics Down Under now one step too far?
Has Ramsay – the man who could once do no wrong, the man who could get away with shouting at Edwina Currie that it wasn’t enough for her to fuck the Prime Minister, she had to fuck Ramsay (up the ass) too – finally bitten off more than even he can chew?
He is already on the back foot following allegations about a long-term affair, claims about exaggerating his football career, the ready-meals debacle, the crumbling business empire, and getting kicked out of the list of the world’s top 100 restaurants.
So even for a chef with the size of his balls and ego, it may have seemed a little foolish – not to say a trifle churlish and downright misogynistic – to start calling Australian TV presenter Tracy Grimshaw a pig-faced lesbian.
The row has rumbled on since the weekend, with growing calls for Ramsay to be shipped out of the country in a convict ship, and Australian women’s groups calling for his bollocks to be hung like corks from Germaine Greer’s hat.
And now the Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has waded in, describing Ramsay as "a new form of low life" and declaring war on Scotland.
The spat began at a food and wine show in Melbourne when Ramsay shocked the 3,000-strong audience by calling Grimshaw "a lesbian" and showing a photo of a nude woman on all fours, with multiple breasts and a pig's face.
"That's Grimshaw," he leered at the crowd like a bully in a tuck shop. "Holy crap. She needs to see a Botox doctor."
Grimshaw then retaliated on her show on Australia's Nine Network by calling the celebrity cook an "arrogant narcissist" and a "bully".
"I'm not going to pretend that his comments didn't hurt. I was absolutely miserable when I found out," she whined.
"He says it was a joke - well not to me or to anyone who truly cares about me.
"Truly, I wonder how many people would laugh if they were effectively described as 'an old ugly pig'. How is that funny, exactly?"
Grimshaw added: "Obviously Gordon thinks that any woman who doesn't find him attractive must be gay. For the record, I don't and I'm not."
She continued her attack in a radio interview, saying his insults upset her and her mother.
She said she did not expect an apology from the TV chef, adding: "I don't want one, I don't care.
"There's nothing more he can do to me now and he can't make it better."
But then Ramsay could not help himself and had another crack at Grimshaw, telling the crowd at the Good Food & Wine Show that he and the TV host had been long-time lovers.
"We were secret lovers for 20 years," he said before dismissing it as a joke. "No, I didn't go there...I didn't stoop that low, for God's sake."
Despite the storm, Ramsay remains unrepentant, saying his comments have been "blown out of context".
Bit like his football career? At least he didn’t mention the cricket.
