Finding the perfect gift for your partner can be a nightmare — even if you’re Jennifer Aniston!
Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver spoke to the radio show “Fitzy & Wippa with Kate Ritchie” on Wednesday, July 31, and recalled helping the Friends star cook up a creative — and delicious — surprise for her then-husband Brad Pitt’s milestone birthday in 2003.
“I actually was Brad Pitt’s 40th birthday present from Jen,” Oliver, 49, revealed. “She phoned up, and we put the phone down on her three times because we didn’t believe it was her. We thought it was someone trying it on. So she had to go through her agent to my agent, but I didn’t really have an agent, so it took a bit of a while. But basically, we got flown. I just did it.”
Oliver shot to fame with British cooking show The Naked Chef, which aired from 1999 to 2001, and it turned out Pitt, 60, was a huge fan.
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“She said, ‘Would you cook for Brad?’” Oliver recalled of the request from Aniston, 55. “He’s well into The Naked Chef and all that business, like he watches it on TV and all that. I said, ‘Absolutely, and I’ll do it for love, because I love you guys.’”
Oliver has gone on to build a cooking empire with multiple eponymous shows and cookbooks in the decades since The Naked Chef aired, and had nothing but praise for the former couple, who were married from 2000 to 2005.
“I don’t purposefully cook for celebrities though, [I] only do it if I’m working in the restaurant and they’re in, or if I’m asked by someone I love or admire which was the case with Jen and Brad,” he said, adding they’ve kept in touch since the occasion. “It was Brad’s 40th, so I’ve known him for 20 years now. They’re both beautiful people. I saw Jen a couple of weeks ago, and she’s everything you would want her to be, and more.”
Oliver’s wife-of-23-years, Jools, previously spoke about the dinner in an interview with Red magazine back in 2014.
In the anecdote, Jools recalled that Aniston’s Friends costar Courteney Cox was also present at the event. In the candid chat, Jools spoke about how awkward she felt making small talk with the group while her partner cooked.
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“Jamie was doing the dinner, so I had to sit and socialize with Brad and Rachel and Monica,” Jools, 49, shared, referring to the actresses’ Friends characters.
“I was so embarrassed, I didn’t know what to say. Brad had just done Troy and was taking his top off to show me his abs,” she added. “From that moment on I just kind of took a step back from it all, it was all too much.”
