Celebrity chef
Gordon Ramsay isn't known for keeping his cool. The hotheaded star of
shows like Hell's Kitchenand Kitchen Nightmares is famous for saying what he thinks with little regard for politesse.
But maintaining an even head may have helped save his life during a recent filming
expedition in Costa Rica. The Telegraph reports that Ramsay and his film crew
were held at gunpoint and soaked with gasoline by angry fishermen who hoped to
stop the group from going public with footage of the area's illicit shark fin trade.
Ramsay was filming the segment as part of the British television series The Big Fish
Fight, which features top UK chefs advocating for sustainable fishing
practices. The episode in question, entitled "Gordon Ramsay: Shark Bait," calls
attention to the estimated 100 million sharks that are killed each year to make shark fin soup, an Asian delicacy.
Ramsay told the Telegraph that just prior
to the attack he had seen the massive scale of the illegal haul that fishing boats bring
in."These gangs operate from places that are like forts, with barbed-wire perimeters and
gun towers," he recalled. "At one, I managed to shake off the people who were keeping us away, ran up some stairs to a rooftop and looked down to see thousands and thousands of fins,
drying on rooftops as far as the eye could see. When
I got back downstairs they tipped a barrel of petrol over me. Then these cars
with blacked out windows suddenly appeared from nowhere, trying to block us in.
We dived into the car and peeled off."
Though Ramsay was later allowed on a fishing boat where he saw a large sack of shark fins
hidden beneath the ship's hull, ultimately he and his crew were advised by the local police to leave the country. "They said, if you set one foot in there, they'll shoot you."
"Gordon Ramsay: Shark Bait" will air in the UK on Sunday, January 16 on Channel 4.
