Why Animal Activists Are Coming After Gordon Ramsay's TikTok

Gordon Ramsay is the outspoken Michelin Star-earning restaurateur that people either love, hate, fear, or some combination of all three. No matter how you feel about him, it is tough to ignore controversial things about Ramsay from different points in his career. Some of the most recent drama that Ramsay has stirred up took place over a TikTok posted by the celebrity chef. In the video, he indiscreetly jumps the fence of a lamb pen and gleefully announces to the group of unassuming lambs inside, "I'm going to eat you." He goes on to ask, "Which one of you is going in the oven first?" The video can still be found on Ramsay's TikTok account as of August 2022. 

Ramsay has openly sneered at vegetarian and vegan ideals in the past, like in his infamous 2018 Twitter feud (via Business Insider). It is fair to say that his animal consumption dogma was brought to an extreme in this video, and sure enough the internet was quick with its response.

Soon after Gordon Ramsay posted the TikTok video, outrage poured in from all corners of the internet. Fans and non-fans alike have left comments criticizing Ramsay for his cruel rhetoric. One person wrote, "I'm not even vegetarian but this is very sad," while another said, "I was today years old when I lost all respect for Gordon Ramsay." Some even stormed the comment section of his unrelated Instagram posts. In a video slide show of Ramsay on a fishing trip, for instance, a user commented, "Did you mock them before killing them too?"

It wasn't long before People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) caught wind of the situation. In an interview with LADbible, PETA UK's vice president of programmes Elisa Allen remarked, "Gordon Ramsay is a callous man who makes a fool of himself: intimidating gentle lambs is loutish, not amusing ... Those lambs are just babies who want little from life but the chance to live it and not end up in this moron's — or anyone else's — mouth."

Some saw humor in Ramsay's video too, though, leaving comments like, "I'm a [vegetarian ]... and I found this funny," and "People just cant [take] a joke ..." The mixed bag of responses begs the question of whether the "Hell's Kitchen" host truly meant to taunt animals while promoting their consumption or was merely playing into his intense, often villainous persona. Either way, most respondents were clearly not amused.