Gordon Ramsay has spoken about the death of his and wife Tana’s unborn son, who they named Rocky, in 2016.
Tana, 49, experienced a miscarriage after five months of pregnancy that year.
“There’s no book that guides you through that loss, and so losing Rocky was really tough,” Ramsay, 56, told People in a new interview.
“Watching the trauma unfold, it’s this life-changing moment.”
Three years later, the couples fifth child, Oscar (now-four), was born. The couple also shared daughter Megan, 25, twins Jack and Holly, 23 and daughter Matilda (“Tilly”), 21.
Ramsay said that the lost brought his family closer together as a unit. “We wouldn’t have had Oscar had we not lost Rocky. There was no substitute – far from it – but it brought us a bond that you’d never experience in a normal situation.”
Tana met Ramsay when she was 18 and the pair married in 1996. She was a Montessori-trained schoolteacher but is now a cookery author and a TV broadcaster.
Tana paid tribute to Rocky in an Instagram post in June, writing: “A happy picture taken of us celebrating Meghan’s 18th, I was just under 20 weeks pregnant.
“Although it’s 7 years today, it still feels like yesterday,” she added. “We all miss you everyday. We love you Rocky, forever in our hearts. I couldn’t do this without my family, you are all everything to me.”
In the interview with People, Ramsay praised his wife’s resilience.
“That’s the power of Tana,” the TV chef said. “Just watching the way that she dealt with it – and opened up with other friends and women in close proximity that could give advice – she was incredible straight after that.”
Their kids “get a lot of strength from their mom,” he said. “There’s a lot of things that Tana’s done, that we wouldn’t be here today without that strength.”
“They needed to find their passion, and I couldn’t be prouder knowing that they have,” he said of his other children. “I suppose my son Oscar [aged three at the time] is my last hope of having a chef in the family. I’ve started putting him to bed with a f***ing whisk and a ladle.”
