Gordon Ramsay is a proud father of six with his wife Tana, who welcomed their youngest child in November 2023.
However, the celebrity chef admitted he was only in the delivery room for the birth of sons Oscar and Jesse. So where was Gordon when Tana was in labour with their four eldest kids Megan, 25, Jack and Holly, 24, and Matilda, 22?
"Tana never wanted me to see her in that state. One time I went fly-fishing," he told the MailOnline, recalling his experience at the six-acre lake at Syon Park, Middlesex.
Gordon was working at his restaurant in Chelsea when he got a phone call from his wife to tell him she was going into labour with their twins in 1999. He confessed he didn't believe her until she called a second time two hours later to say she was going into theatre for a C-section at Portland Hospital.
"She still hasn’t forgiven me for turning up half an hour late. Personally, I’m quite relieved I did – if I’d seen it I’d have dropped to the floor!" said the doting father.
Tana previously opened up to HELLO! about the "shock" of her twins being born prematurely and spending seven days in intensive care followed by special care for two weeks.
"I remember the actual shock, how useless you feel when you go into labour early and suddenly you've got these two tiny little babies, so helpless and vulnerable whisked away from you into intensive care," she said.
Despite suggesting Tana was angry for his absence when their twins were born, he reiterated that he was banned from the delivery room.
"Tana didn’t [expletive] want me there!" the Hell's Kitchen star said to Now to Love. "And all of a sudden [I’m] denounced as this oaf."
Seventeen years after Tilly was born, Gordon managed to change Tana's mind to share in the special moment Oscar was born via caesarean.
"I said, '[expletive] it, I’m going to be there,'" he said, before revealing he almost fainted during the "scary" birth.
"I cried my [expletive] eyes out," he confessed. "She has thrombophilia [which increases the risks of blood clots], so a caesarean is a big operation. Everyone thinks it’s easy but it’s not."
His fears about struggling to witness his older children's births were not unfounded. Gordon admitted that after the medical professionals put Oscar into his arms: "I was white as a ghost. I fell back into the chair and I fainted."
Family heartbreak
Oscar was born three years after the couple suffered a miscarriage with baby Rocky at five months in 2016.
In 2021, Tana paid an emotional tribute to their late son on Instagram. "Not a day goes by when we don’t think of him, but, it wasn't meant to be. We have gone on to be blessed and will be eternally grateful, but shall always remember our angel baby with a heart bursting with love and many many tears x," she wrote.
During an interview on Loose Women, the doting mum commented on how she couldn't have coped without Gordon's support.
"It's such a personal decision when you have a baby and this was 20 years ago," she said about having children. "The way that I felt, the way Gordon felt, it was something we decided on together. He wasn't with me when I gave birth to Meg or the twins or Tilly.
"But now we're older and it's quite interesting because I lost a baby in 2016 and Gordon was with me throughout that entire process and there's no way I could have done it without him right there by my side.
"When we went on to have Oscar, 19 months ago, again he was right there by my side. I think you have to do what absolutely suits you and the one thing that Gordon and I are very good at doing is communicating, everyone knows he's good at chatting."
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