French chef Jean-Christophe Novelli returns to TV screens tonight (February 24), in new ITV2 series The Heat.
The new cooking show – fronted by Love Island alum Olivia Attwood – follows Jean-Christophe, 65, as he searches for the culinary world’s next big thing. The series will see Jean-Christophe mentor his team of young chefs at a pop-up eatery in Barcelona, where they’ll battle it out to be crowned Star Chef.
With fiery exchanges both inside and outside of the kitchen teased, and romance on the cards for some of the hopefuls, it looks as though Jean-Christophe will have his work cut out when it comes to finding his next rising star.
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But the chef is no stranger to pressure, both in his Michelin-starred restaurants and at the home he shares with wife Michelle and sons Jean, Jacques and Valentino.
Chef Jean-Christophe Novelli on son’s cancer diagnosis
Jean-Christophe has been married three times. He shares daughter Christina with first wife Tina. In 1999, he married South African model Anzelle Visser.
He tied the knot with third wife Michelle in 2018. Together, they have three children – Jean, 16, Jacques, 13, and Valentino, who is now nine. Jean-Christophe has previously been open about Valentino’s early years, after he was diagnosed with rare stage-four neuroblastoma cancer at six weeks old.
He was diagnosed after doctors found a lump on his neck. At the time, a spokesperson said: “Jean-Christophe’s priority at this time is supporting his family as they deal with this devastating news, it is still very early days but they remain positive and believe the NHS experts are doing everything possible.
“Jean has had to postpone all his immediate work over the next two weeks to be with his baby and support his family but is grateful for the understanding and support during this very difficult time.”
“I am so proud of him. He is such a little fighter,” Michelle told the Mail at the time. “He’s been remarkably strong; stronger than me, stronger than all of us. He is so tiny and helpless, and yet he’s the one who’s going through all this agony.”
Jean-Christophe added: “Until you are going through this yourself, you simply cannot imagine what it will be like. We have both blamed ourselves, wondered if it was something we did or something genetic. But there has never been any cancer in either of our families. All I’ve wanted to do for the past few months is to put myself in his place. People say it is being brave, but we have no choice. We have had to be brave together.”
Valentino gets the all-clear
In 2017, Jean-Christophe revealed that Valentino had been given the all-clear.
He told Hello: “Valentino is growing stronger every day. Remembering how awful it was when he never smiled during his treatment, it’s the best sound in the world to hear him laugh.”
“It was very, very difficult, and it’s still very, very difficult,” he said on The Matt Haycox Show podcast in 2023. “It’s very unfair anybody ends up having cancer, but especially when you are six weeks old, it is beyond anything you can believe.
“And, the thing is, we were not ready. If you know something bad is gonna happen, you can prepare yourself, but when we found out, you have no idea how many times my wife and I were in tears. But, we had to stay strong for our family.”
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A second life-changing diagnosis for Valentino
However, the joy of Valentino’s remission was short-lived. His cancer battle caused him to develop a rare chromosome disorder, which leads to learning difficulties. As a result, Valentino has severe autism and is non-verbal.
Jean-Christophe said: “The cancer Valentino beat will have drastic consequences for his whole life. Firstly, he is autistic, but he’s not just autistic, he also has several learning disabilities.”
Michelle also told Hello! magazine: “We’re having to accept that he may be non-verbal, which is very sad. He can’t even say ‘Mummy’, which is heartbreaking.”
Speaking at the end of 2024, she added: “He has the mental age of a one-and-a-half to two-year-old, but we’re seeing improvements in his development. We’ve always had to feed Valentino, but recently, he started using a spoon by himself.”
In a previous interview, Jean-Christophe told The Mirror how hard Valentino’s second diagnosis hit the family.
“It’s a lot to take in. We just think oh my god, can we not just give this boy a break? He’s been on a real long journey though and if he can beat cancer, he can handle this. He’s a little fighter and we are looking on the positive side.”
He also told how Valentino is adored by big brothers Jean and Jacques: “I’m so proud of all my children. They are always thinking about Valentino. They never complain. Valentino is the sun, and we are the stars around him.”
How did Jean-Christophe Novelli become a chef?
Born in Arras, northern France France, 65-year-old Jean-Christophe Novelli is used to working with the great and the good of the culinary world.
When he was 14 years old, he left school to work in a bakery. He credits his mum with inspiring him to become a cook. “Mum was a fantastic cook,” he told Lovefood.com in 2019. “Even if we were having pancakes for dinner it was perfect. It wasn’t gastronomic, but it was perfect.
“I learned a lot from watching her. When Mum went to the market I remember her using her senses when buying food: looking and smelling if she was buying artichokes for example.”
Taking all this onboard, by the time he was 20, Jean-Christophe became personal chef to the world-famous Rothschild family.
Moving to the UK in 1983, Jean-Christophe worked with Keith Floyd at his Master’s Arms in Totnes. After leaving, he won the first of his four Michelin Stars at Gordleton Mill in Lymington, Hampshire.
As the critical acclaim wracked up, so did the TV appearances, including a stint on ITV’s Hell’s Kitchen. In 2005, he famously lost it in the TV kitchen, smashing plates and hurling cutlery as he laid into one of his students.
So has he mellowed with age, or are the rising stars on The Heat in line for a roasting at the end of service? There’s only one way to find out…
Jean-Christophe Novelli and Olivia Attwood’s The Heat starts on ITV2 on Tuesday (February 24) at 9pm.
Read more: Inside The Heat star Olivia Attwood’s feud with ‘stalker’ Maura Higgins
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