Nigella Lawson
- Profession: Cookery Writer and TV Presenter
- Place/Date of Birth: London, 06 January 2021
"I like plain food, you don’t need anything special. One of the things that panics me is people who come round [to dinner] and think they’re going to get something great... but I’m not a chef," she laughs.
Domestic Goddess makes xmas comeback - Sept 8, 2020
Nigella Lawson is making a comeback with a Christmas cookery series on BBC Two. The TV chef, famed for her hourglass figure, will give tips on how to eradicate stress while cooking during the festive season.
Nigella’s Christmas Kitchen will see the 46-year-old ’domestic goddess’ outline "vital short cuts" to make cooking enjoyable. The Domestic Goddess became required viewing on Channel 4 following the launch of Nigella Bites in 2001. But her daytime chat show on ITV last year, Nigella, was considered a disaster.
In the new series, her first for the BBC, Nigella helps deal with pre-Christmas entertaining and baking. BBC Two controller Roly Keating said: "I’m absolutely delighted to welcome Nigella to BBC Two. "Nigella is a uniquely talented and distinctive cook and this new series will be a real treat for BBC Two viewers this autumn."
The chef, married to multimillionaire second husband collector Charles Saatchi, will also deliver her method of cooking a turkey "guaranteed not to disappoint".
Call me Lawson, Nigella Lawson - 23/12/02
Nigella Lawson has revealed she was approached to become an agent for MI5 while she was a student at university.
Nigella, daughter of former Tory chancellor Nigel Lawson, dropped her bombshell on Ruby Wax’s BBC talkshow during a discussion with Samantha Bond, who plays Miss Moneypenny in the current James Bond film, Die Another Day.
As a schoolgirl Nigella, now 42, was taught by Eliza Manningham-Buller, now MI5’s director-general, and one possibility is that her former teacher initiated the approach.
Nigella told Ruby that she had no idea what her career would be after leaving university in 1982, adding: "I certainly didn’t know I was going to become a cook... the cooking thing just got bigger."
Both MI5 and MI6 frequently target promising graduates at Britain’s leading universities for recruitment.
Nigella’s brother Dominic Lawson, now editor of the Sunday Telegraph, has been accused of working for MI6 in the early Nineties, something which he has always denied.
Helena Bonham Carter
Hugh Laurie
Rachel Weisz
Faces in Fashion
Ricci Stoene
Sadie Frost
Musicians
DJ Jon Carter
Graham Coxon
Ms Dynamite
Writers & Artists
Amanda Craig
Features
Celeb Rehab
Keeping up with the WAGs...
Profiles: Film
Angelina Jolie
Keira Knightley
Tom Cruise
Profiles: Music
Britney Spears
Kylie Minogue
Madonna
Profiles: Fashion
Kate Moss
Naomi Campbell
Victoria Beckham
UK's Best
New Years Eve Parties
UK's Best
New Years Eve Parties
Find out where to party on NYE
| Book local Hotels |  |
under £40 | |
from £40 to £60 | |
from £60 to £80 | |
from £80 to £100 | |
over £100 |
However, cookery wasn’t the career Nigella started out on. She has a degree from Oxford University in Medieval and Modern Languages and was a television newspaper reviewer on Breakfast with Frost and also had a restaurant reviewing job with The Spectator and was Deputy Literary Editor for the Sunday Times during the latter half of the 80s.
However, Nigella couldn’t resist getting the world to ditch those diets and in 2001 she slinkily sashayed on to our screens for Nigella Bites and in 2002 Forever Summer With Nigella was aired. She briefly became one of the UK’s favourite celebrity chef and sold millions of her accompanying recipe books and also became the figure of affectionate fun for her rather sexy take on cooking.
A third series - this time a daytime show on ITV entitled Nigella! missed the mark and was soon taken off the air. She however continues to write and has published both cookery books and a biography since. A return to TV is also promised later in 2006.
While her public successes are many Nigella’s private life has been blighted by sadness - both her mother and sister, Thomasina, died of cancer within ten years of each other while in 2001 her husband, journalist John Diamond, was diagnosed with and died of the same. She was remarried, to art collector Charles Saatchi, just two years later and faced the wrath of the press when it was revealed that they had begun an affair before her husband’s death despite the fact he had reportedly given his consent. Nigella has two children, Cosima and Bruno, by Diamond.
October 2007