Why Is Gordon Ramsay Filming a Documentary About the Colombian Drug Trade?

Shouter of curse words Gordon Ramsay is inexplicably starring in a documentary about the Colombian drug trade right now for UK network ITV — and, in a baffling move, the celebrity chef decided to film a promo using Wimbledon Common as a stand-in for Colombia. At the end of July, passersby in the bucolic London park saw makeup artists applying fake mud to Ramsay’s face, and he was later spotted being filmed in an army truck marked “Policia” in part of a caravan that also included men with assault rifles. A spokesperson for ITV told the Telegraph: “This was filming for a conceptual marketing trail, not for a documentary.”

Earlier this year, Ramsay did indeed travel to Colombia to shoot this documentary, which will premiere this fall. But now an unnamed source tells celebrity gossip site Radar Online that Ramsay opted not to return to Colombia to shoot the promo because he is “really running scared” and “knows how drug cartels will try to wreak revenge on the families of anyone who tries to expose them.” Before the trip, Ramsay remarked that he was preparing for “something pretty hostile.”

Manuel Betancourt, an editor at Latin culture site Remezcla, offers a take on the project and the spin surrounding it: “We know pop culture is obsessed with only depicting Colombia as some sort of drug-peddling war-torn country (hi Narcos!) but surely we could do with less sensationalistic headline-grabbing stunts like these, no? Especially after the government and the FARC signed a historic peace accord, let’s focus on peace, not violence.”

• Gordon Ramsay seen filming for Colombia drug cartel documentary on Wimbledon Common [Telegraph]
• Cooked! Food Star Gordon Ramsay Marked For Death [Radar]
• Chef Gordon Ramsay Shot a Documentary Promo in London, But Pretended It Was Colombia [Remezcla]