Sarah Symonds accuses Gordon Ramsay of whitewashing in Netflix series
sarah symonds, 56, has called the six-part documentary Being Gordon Ramsay "completely misleading and fake, " saying the show presents a "glossed over, rehabilitated, glow-up version of a bully, cheat, liar and serial philanderer. " A story published at 07: 39 GMT on 22 Feb 2026 and updated at 13: 20 GMT on 22 Feb 2026 carried her comments.
Sarah Symonds: ‘totally fake’ and traumatised
Sarah Symonds said the programme’s title was "totally fake" and "misleading and disingenuous, " adding that she has been left "traumatised by the alleged affair and the fallout that followed. " She wrote, "If I read once more that this documentary is 'unflinchingly honest', I think I'll scream. I am trying to heal, and then this appears everywhere. It makes me so angry. "
What the series shows: five concepts at 22 Bishopsgate
Being Gordon Ramsay runs six parts and stretches to six hours as it follows Ramsay setting up multiple dining concepts on the top floors of 22 Bishopsgate. The series tracks the development of five new dining concepts, including a 60-seat rooftop garden with a retractable roof, a 250-seater Asian-inflected restaurant called Lucky Cat, a Bread Street Kitchen brasserie and a culinary school, and it captures the work required to design and build each premise from scratch.
Family scenes and a personal portrait in the film
The series opens with a family scene: the youngest of Gordon Ramsay’s six children and his wife of roughly 30 years, Tana, sharing pancakes that Gordon judges too thick because they are American-style rather than crepes. In the film Ramsay calls Tana the "foundation" who stood alongside him as he built a global restaurant empire and rose to worldwide TV fame during their near 30-year marriage, and he expresses regret that work commitments often took him away from his young children as they were growing up.
Why Megan and Jack don’t appear
Four of the couple’s six children appear in the documentary, but Megan and Jack are noticeably absent. Ramsay told Food Bible that Megan works as a police officer and that security concerns make her absence "crucial, " and he said Jack is a Royal Marines serviceman and "a busy boy, " adding for safety reasons "they can’t be anywhere near that. " He also quoted Megan joking that she would be furious if he used his phone at a traffic light.
Details that underline the show’s industry focus
The series spends time on granular choices: tastings and menu details ("you can’t make a rum baba too small or it won’t aerate properly"), design decisions such as removing pockets from prototype aprons because wait staff fill them and look scruffy, and a veto on leather seating to save space. One sequence frames the whole effort as "A huge undertaking, " "high risk, high reward, " and "one of my final stakes in the ground … If it fails, I’m fucked. "
Denials, past allegations and public appearances
Gordon Ramsay has long denied having had an affair. Sarah Symonds has accused him of living "a double life 'as a single man'" during the years she knew him and said their alleged seven-year affair made his marriage "a sham. " She added that he "was always available and always at the same social venues late at night as me" and "had the swagger and confidence of a man with no responsibilities. "
The series also crosses the Atlantic to include locations such as Hell’s Kitchen Las Vegas, and it shows other family moments: viewers see daughter Holly’s engagement party in London and scenes of Tilly being dropped off at culinary school. Earlier public posts from Ramsay celebrate family milestones: a 2019 Instagram post marked Megan’s graduation and a 2020 post marked Jack joining the Royal Marines; Megan attended the launch of The River Restaurant in 2021 and Jack appeared at the official Lucky Cat launch party alongside family and other guests.
Being Gordon Ramsay officially dropped on Netflix on 18 February and is streaming now.
