Jamie Oliver opened up about his restaurant empire collapse last night in a documentary with Davina McCall, which brought him to tears.
The Channel 4 show, Jamie Oliver: The Naked Chef Bares All, took a look back on his 20-year career from the moment he skyrocketed to fame with his The Naked Chef series.
However, among the highs, there has been lows, as the celebrity chef was forced to close 22 of his Jamie's Italian chain - including the Manchester King Street branch - as they plunged into administration.
The father-of-five let the camera crews into his London home for the first time, where presenter Davina spent time with him, his wife Jools and their children.
Talking about his restaurant staff, Jamie said: "It's a really tough one. For many, many months now I have been walking around the office and you have been like 'Jamie, are you alright' and I have gone 'Yes' but the truth was no I'm f*****g not, it's f****d.
"I am utterly devastated, financially I have exhausted everything I could, I used every card, I used every trick, I used every contact."
The 44-year-old went on to confess that his confidence in the chain didn't help. He continued: "We got cocky, we thought anything we did would work.
"Massive lessons learnt, I will never make them again, never again, never again, never again."
In a trip down memory lane, Jamie broke down in tears as the pair visited the site of his first Fifteen restaurant in London.
Standing before the abandoned venue, the chef said: "It is really eerie and I don't like it.
"I don't know, it is like in the films when the bomb has gone off and everyone has to leave and everything is just left.
"My god, it's tough. I have been so stressed, I have been, it's gone."
The Naked Chef went on to open up about how fast the collapse happened, meaning that staff weren't aware until it was too late.
He said: "Sadly you can't practically give employees notice that you are about to make them redundant in administration.
"It is just not practical, administrators take over executive control, we are appointed by the court.
"So what happened was we had to move quickly. The hard part of this particular case was that only a relatively small number of employees, percentage wise, were there at that particular time."
Jamie then explained how he shared the news of the business going under: "We invite all employees to conference calls which we lead and we give people the bad news sadly, which is awful.
"But there is no other way to do it."
Jamie then admitted the most 'painful regret'.
He said: "The staff got paid up to the date, I made sure of that.
"Without question the most painful regret when a business dies is having to tell staff that you care about, that have worked really hard for you, that they haven't got a job anymore."
You can catch up on the Channel 4 documentary that aired on Wednesday, August 21 at 8pm on All 4.
