Jamie Oliver withdraws children’s book over ‘racist stereotyping’

The TV chef has withdrawn his latest children’s book from shops and apologised after First Nations groups slammed the novel for being ‘damaging and disrespectful’.

Jamie Oliver said he was devastated after the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Commission condemned his book

You can now listen to The Australian's articles. Give us your feedback.

You can now listen to The Australian's articles.

Jamie Oliver has pulled his latest children’s book from shops and apologised after it was criticised for causing offence to First Nation Australians.

The TV chef and his publisher, Penguin Random House, have taken responsibility for failing to carry out sufficient sensitivity checks on Billy and the Epic Escape, his second novel for youngsters.

Oliver said that he was “devastated” after the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Commission condemned the book, first published in May, for being “damaging [and] disrespectful”.

Billy and the Epic Escape is mainly set in England but a subplot involves a trip to Alice Springs, Northern Territory, where the novel’s villain abducts a young First Nations girl living in foster care in an indigenous community.

Sharon Davis, the chief executive of the commission, criticised the implication in a chapter titled “To Steal a Child” that First Nations families “are easily swayed by money and neglect the safety of their children”.

“It perpetuates a racist stereotype that has been used to justify child removals for over a century,” she told The Guardian. “This portrayal is not only offensive but also reinforces damaging biases.”

Oliver, 49, who is in Australia promoting a cookbook, apologised “wholeheartedly”.

“It was never my intention to misinterpret this deeply painful issue,” he said. “Together with my publishers we have decided to withdraw the book from sale.”

A spokesman for Penguin Random House said that it had a “deep sense of responsibility” to ensure that its books were suitable for everyone. “It is clear that our publishing standards fell short on this occasion, and we must learn from that and take decisive action.

“With that in mind, we have agreed with Jamie Oliver that we will be withdrawing the book from sale.”

In 2022, Oliver said that he employed “cultural appropriation specialists” to check his recipes to avoid potential insensitivities. “Your immediate reaction is to be defensive and say, ‘For the love of God, really?’ And then you go, ‘Well, we don’t want to offend anyone’,” he told The Sunday Times at the time.

He admitted that his 2012 recipe, “Empire roast chicken” would be unacceptable today, even though it was a “bloody good recipe”.

The Times