Celebrity Chef Gordon Ramsay is going through backlash on TikTok from some customers after posting a video through which he appeared to choose a lamb to slaughter for a meal.
On Thursday, Ramsay posted a video of himself climbing into a pen of roughly ten pristine, white lamb. In the video, Ramsay rubbed his fingers collectively whereas repeatedly saying “yummy.”
“I’m going to eat you,” the chef mentioned to the group of lamb.
Then, he requested, “Which one’s going within the oven first?” He selected a sheep, pointing and saying: “You.”
Ramsay, 55, then jumped into the pen, startling some of the sheep.
The chef and restauranteur, clarified later that “No animals have been cooked within the making of this video,” in accordance to Insider, which first reported on the backlash.
Ramsay captioned the video “The Lamb sauce was nonetheless not discovered within the making of this video…….” — a reference to a 2006 meme, derived from a scene on his show “Hell’s Kitchen,” in which he asked a contestant for lamb sauce.
The video had nearly a million likes and almost 9 million views as of Sunday.
While some appeared to find humor in the bit, others were upset about the video and the way Ramsay appeared to taunt the animal headed for slaughter.
“What a classless, out-of-touch and heartless manner to deal with one other sentient being,” one individual wrote in a duet video.
Another person accused Ramsay of “animal abuse.”
“Do you assume that grown males needs to be educating kids on TikTok that animal abuse is humorous,” the individual wrote of their response.
One user called out not only Ramsay, but those making jokes about the video in his comment section.
“Those are infants. Literal infants,” the individual said within the duet. “This shouldn’t be regular conduct … it isn’t humorous. it isn’t entertaining and when you assume animals do not perceive us, look how scared they’re when he will get within the pen.”
Representatives for Ramsay did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ramsay, already a celebrity in his own right, has become a TikTok star as well, with more than 33.5 million followers on the platform. He’s gained traction on the app posting reactions to other users’ cooking videos, along with posting his own content.