“I don't think being us is easy”: Jamie Oliver reflects on marriage milestone and raising three kids 

Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver is reflecting on the challenges of balancing marriage, parenting, and maintaining a life under the spotlight. In a recent interview with PEOPLE magazine, Oliver talks candidly about how his family's experiences have been impacted by his fame and the growing pains that have come with it as he reaches new milestones in both his personal and professional life:

“I don't think being us is easy, and that I'm not complaining, I'm just saying it's, getting the balance.”

In the PEOPLE interview, Jamie Oliver talked openly about having five kids with his wife, Jools Oliver, ahead of the U.S. premieres of his new 10 Cooking Skills for Life show and Netflix's Chef's Table: Legends.

Jamie Oliver acknowledged that being the kids of a well-known chef was not always easy for them, referring to the struggles that his children are not real prob thems." boys named Buddy (14 years) and River (8 years), as well as their daughters Poppy (23 years), Daisy (22 (years), and Petal (16 years). He said:

“Being the kids of Jamie Oliver, is also tricky. Depending on the kid and their personality, some of them are super embarrassed of me. They don't want me to pick them up from school, God forbid, say anything.”

According to the father of five, each child handled attention differently, based on their respective ages and personalities. Particularly as teenagers, several of his children had to cope with the embarrassment that often accompanied their father's fame.

Oliver explained:

“Just the attention of your dad being known, normally for the right reasons, is embarrassing when you're a teenage girl."

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“I don't think being us is easy” - Jamie Oliver

Jamie Oliver said, talking about a broader view of his family's experiences:

“I don't think being us is easy, and that I'm not complaining, I'm just saying it's, getting the balance.”

He underlined that although public recognition is not always bad, it comes with distinct challenges, particularly for kids who wish to establish their identities separate from their parents' celebrity persona. Oliver noted that his oldest kids had become more accustomed to being the center of attention, now that they are grown-ups. He said with full enthusiasm:

"But now I've got a 22 and a 23-year-old, and they fully handle it, they've got it down."

Being raised by a celebrity chef and restaurateur, like Jamie Oliver, meant that a close bond with food was formed. Jamie proudly described how he has taught all of his kids the fundamentals of cooking. He stated:

“All of my kids have got a confidence with cooking. I've taught all of my kids how to cook: planting things, growing things, picking things, coming to the market, getting to know everyone in the market, having conversations with people, realizing that naturally food is a delicious thing."

James Olivet also jokingly acknowledged a common phase among teenagers when it comes to food preferences:

“When they start getting into 12, 13 years old, they start to go down the generic of all the predictable pizza, burger stuff — but they do come back.”

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"It's definitely a team effort": Jamie Oliver on his success in his personal life and business ventures

In addition to his career accomplishments, Jamie Oliver commemorates another significant milestone: 25 years of marriage to Jools. Jamie praised his wife Jools and stressed her importance in his life:

“Jools gives me the freedom to be able to do the things that I do. And even the good things I do and the campaigny things that matter that I do, they're still self-indulgent, as in, they've got to take a proportion of my brain and my day and my week. So it's definitely a team effort.”

The couple plans to go on a special vacation to Amsterdam to celebrate their milestone with bike rides, canal walks, and a romantic supper dinner “in classic Oliver style.”

He also joked that the meal "will be surrounded by vegs" and added:

"It'll be nice to give herself a little pat on the back and attempt to be romantic."

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Jamie Oliver launches "10 Cooking Skills for Life" to teach kids essential cooking skills

With 10 Cooking Skills for Life debuting as a program in the US, Jamie Oliver is stepping up his efforts to teach kids about food in addition to his television endeavors.

Following a successful pilot run at a high school in Los Angeles in 2024, the platform, which is a component of Oliver's larger Ministry of Food initiative, officially debuted in the United States on April 28, 2025.

In order to make culinary instruction interesting and accessible, the initiative provides free lesson plans, videos, and recipes to educate middle and high school students about the fundamentals of cooking. In the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada, it has touched the lives of 234,000 people. By 2030, Oliver wants to reach one million people worldwide.

Oliver is passionate about teaching the younger generation how to cook. He has been a long supporter of healthy school lunches and food education for young people in the UK and abroad, consistently advocating for changes that prioritize wholesome meals and food literacy in classrooms.

Oliver gave the following explanation of the new program's motivation:

“10 skills is trying to create amazing recipes, pictures, videos, competitions, environments, teacher plans, student plans, make it really easy for teachers or any club that wants to get kids cooking. We are really trying to make it, not just like, ‘Oh, it's cooking, it's a luxury,’ but actually a necessity.”

He continued, considering the connection between this new platform and his decades-long mission:

“10 Skills just feels like part of the same narrative, which is, the next generation love, enthusiasm.”

In the next episode of Chef's Table: Legends, Jamie Oliver will be joined by other culinary pioneers Alice Waters, José Andrés, and Thomas Keller, who collectively decide to dedicate to transforming how kids eat and learn about food.

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