If one looks through Tana Ramsay’s Instagram page, it’s striking quite how much effort it takes to find a mention of her daughter Holly’s romance with Adam Peaty.
There’s no mention of her marriage to the Olympic swimming champion in a blockbuster event at Bath Abbey last week. And you have to trawl back to 2023 to find Tana posting a picture of the pair, who were then newly engaged.
Adam’s proposal to Holly was, said Tana, ‘simply the best news’.
Since that date she has – perhaps wisely –steered clear of making any public pronouncement on their relationship, which became increasingly publicised and contentious after a row developed within the Peaty clan over wedding outfits which spectacularly led to the groom’s mother Caroline being uninvited to the big day.
And while Gordon Ramsay, 59, shared his delight over the couple’s nuptials with his 20million Instagram followers – telling them last week: ‘I’m truly so lucky being able to walk this beautiful bride down the aisle and gaining an incredible son in law @adamramsaypeaty’ – Tana has maintained a notable silence.
Because Tana, 51, who prefers to stick to neutral, pride-filled posts about all her six children – Megan, 27, twins Holly and Jack, 25, Tilly, 24, Oscar, five, and Jesse, two – has been quietly holding things together at home amid the devastating fall-out.
And it’s entirely in keeping with her character, say friends, who refer to her as ‘Tana the peacemaker’. Those who know the devoted mother say she has long been focused on instilling strong family values in her children and prizes nothing more highly than a calm and happy home.
Determined to bring her children up with impeccable manners regardless of their obvious privilege, those who know Tana say they believe she is deeply upset at the rift between her new son-in-law and his mother.
Tana, who prefers to stick to neutral, pride-filled posts about all her six children, has been quietly holding things together at home amid the devastating fall-out, Katie Hind reveals
Holly Ramsay with Caroline Peaty and Olympic swimmer Adam. The row between the couple and the Olympian’s mother is said to have started when the bride took a dislike to her outfit
The row started when Holly is said to have taken a dislike to the outfit Caroline had chosen to wear for her nuptials.
The argument soon escalated when Caroline was not asked to Holly’s hen-do and her invitation to the wedding was dramatically withdrawn. In the event, neither she, Adam’s father nor his two brothers were present for the lavish event.
Only Adam’s sister, Bethany, who was a bridesmaid, attended.
Gordon couldn’t help but rub salt into the wound when he took a swipe at the Peaty family in his speech. It’s claimed that, while speaking to assembled guests at the exclusive Kin House in the Cotswolds, Gordon commented on how beautiful Holly looked and told Adam he was a ‘lucky man’.
He reportedly then said to Adam: ‘Look at Tana and that’s what you have to look forward to.’
Then, in an uncomfortable dig at Adam’s parents, he told Holly: ‘Shame you don’t have the same.’
His comment left many aghast and further upset the Peaty family. Last week, Caroline, who sacrificed so much to enable Adam to fulfil his dream to become an Olympic gold medallist, told the Daily Mail: ‘I don’t think they understand how much they have hurt me; it’s as if they have cut my heart out.’
Ironically, one person who would be well able to sympathise with a rift within the heart of her family is Tana herself, who knows first- hand the pitfalls and emotional trauma after her own father, Chris Hutcheson, spectacularly fell out with Gordon and was sacked as CEO of Gordon Ramsay Holdings, more of which later.
The pair on their wedding day at Bath Abbey last month. Several stars attended the ceremony
‘Tana is the kindest, sweetest and most down-to-earth woman you could wish to meet,’ says a friend who knows her well. ‘She loves nothing more than being a mum. Parenting is her thing and she’s done her very best to bring her children up with morals, manners and tried to teach them to do the right thing.
‘Gordon is brash and maverick. Tana is the calming mother hen, the peacemaker. Falling out like this, to the extent that your mother isn’t at your own wedding, is just awful.’
Not that there were any signs of disquiet in a new interview with Holly, published on the Vogue website yesterday alongside exclusive pictures from the day.
Indeed, Holly appeared to enjoy her father’s vulgar outburst, describing the speech as ‘everything and more’, adding that she was ‘overwhelmed with happiness’, as she shared a photograph of herself and Peaty laughing as her father spoke.
She said: ‘[I was] listening to Dad’s speech, looking around the room and feeling overwhelmed with the love and the happiness on our guests’ faces.’
It isn’t known what Tana thought of her husband’s jibe. While, of course, she would have been filled with joy as her husband showered her daughter with praise, there’s also no doubt, say friends, that she hates falling out with people. At the very least, they say, she will be hoping that one day things will calm down.
It wouldn’t be the first time Tana has brought an emollient approach to a family row.
Friends tell me she was very keen to smooth things over with her own father, who was jailed for six months in 2017 after being found guilty of conspiring to hack into the computer system for Gordon’s businesses between 2010 and 2011.
After being sacked as CEO of Gordon Ramsay Holdings, an aggrieved Hutcheson then tried to access the firm’s computers more than 2,000 times, in a well-publicised scandal that hugely embarrassed and upset Tana. For all her pain, I’m told that father and daughter ‘mended things very quickly’.
A trained Montessori teacher, Tana has largely avoided the limelight since meeting Gordon in the 1990s. Her only foray into showbiz – back in 2010 when she signed up to take part in ITV reality show Dancing On Ice – left her ‘absolutely mortified’ by the attention.
After being eliminated in the fourth episode, ‘she quickly retreated back to her home and her low-key life’, says a friend.
‘There were some horrible things written about her which were deeply upsetting for her. Tana – who is about as normal as you can get – is more comfortable at home with her children.’
She gave birth to her first child Megan in 1998, and a year later Holly and her twin brother Jack, all via IVF.
Then along came Tilly, the couple’s only child to be conceived naturally.
In 2016, Tana and Gordon tragically lost their son, who they named Rocky, to a miscarriage at 20 weeks.
Three years later, Tana gave birth to another son, Oscar. Then in 2023, at the age of 49, she gave birth to her sixth child, a boy named Jesse.
While Gordon focused on his global career, Tana was holding the fort at home. When her children were little, she would regularly be seen, looking somewhat harassed, in London’s ‘nappy valley’ suburb of Wandsworth.
At one point she had three children under three – yet there would be no nanny in sight. ‘She would be the woman pushing a double buggy while another of her kids was running off,’ says one friend of the family.
Many, then, wonder just how Tana feels about the rift with the Peatys, especially as some claim the Ramsays have been rather snobby about Adam’s working-class family.
‘She isn’t someone who likes confrontation and she has been extremely supportive of her friend Victoria Beckham during her terrible fall-out with her son Brooklyn. It has been very sad for all concerned,’ says a source who knows the Ramsays.
Indeed, neither Holly nor Adam have emerged from the saga in an especially good light, with Peaty being accused of being ungrateful towards his mother, who so loyally supported him with his swimming career. As for Holly, she has been labelled snooty.
That accusation may have been given more oxygen with the publication of the wedding pictures yesterday on the Vogue website, after the couple negotiated a lucrative deal with the fashion bible for exclusive rights.
Some shots showed Holly in her exquisite lace Elie Saab wedding dress, which she had shielded under a white cape when she arrived with her father at Bath Abbey to protect her money-spinning deal with the magazine.
Holly revealed in her interview that she chose the dress after being inspired by two other famous brides: Kate Middleton’s gown when she married Prince William in 2011 and Grace Kelly’s 1956 bridal gown.
Holly was also seen with her sisters Megan and Tilly, as well as Adam’s sister Bethany, who were all wearing Victoria Beckham bridesmaid dresses.
Also there was Holly’s twin Jack, a Royal Marine, who wore his ceremonial military uniform.
While Holly praised her father for his loyalty to her in the interview, she also expressed her gratitude to Tana, who had accompanied her on her excursions to find the perfect wedding dress, taking little Jesse with her.
Holly also wore her mother’s wedding dress from 1996 for her first dance and said: ‘I’ve always loved the idea of bringing in Mum’s dress at some point.
‘It’s beautiful: silk with a V-neckline and pearls all the way around. I tried it on and it fitted me perfectly – it didn’t need any altering.’ She also revealed that Tana was ‘on the Peloton’ when Holly first tried it on – and her mum promptly burst into tears.
Of the unpleasantness with her in-laws, there was – unsurprisingly – no mention.
Instead, the interview was littered with gleeful revelations such as their wedding breakfast – beef wellington – being arranged by the team at her father’s lavish London Savoy Grill restaurant.
Holly also revealed that she wore shoes by Amina Muaddi which she says were a ‘Christmas present from Adam last year’, and carried a shell-shaped Chanel minaudiere, a limited-edition 2016 bag she tracked down online.
Holly also hailed her mum’s best friend Posh Spice as ‘one of her favourite women’ alongside a photograph of her, Lady Beckham and her mother Tana.
The couple have not, as yet, given any other publications permission to use the photographs.
Holly and Adam are currently soaking up the sunshine on their luxury honeymoon in Mauritius – a wedding gift, she revealed, from her wealthy parents.
They will surely be glad of the break from constant chatter about the family feud.
As for whether that wound will ever be healed, there appears to be only one woman who could potentially soothe the situation – and that’s Tana.
