‘You should be able to laugh at yourself’: Jamie Oliver stars in CMAT’s Jamie Oliver petrol station video | He punched

It’s been 27 years since Jamie Oliver first appeared on television as The Naked Chef, and he’s working his way into cultural ubiquity thanks to his rock ‘n’ roll credentials: his band Scarlet Division provided the show’s theme tune, and his love of Toploader made their cover of Dancing in the Moonlight a massive hit. Since then, the music has diminished, for better or worse, into Oliver’s now global brand — an unwieldy commercial force that inadvertently inspired one of the best songs of 2025.

Last year, Irish pop star CMAT released her third album, Euro-Country, the highlight of which was an indie epic called The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station, which was released ahead of her headlining concert at Glastonbury. The lyrics mention the singer being in a Shell garage selling Oliver’s range of salads and sandwiches, and losing the plot when he sees the chef’s face. “I needed deli, but oh my God, I hate him,” CMAT (AKA Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson) sings, though it’s less eccentric, and more about her relationship with irrational hatred in a confusing world: critic Dorian Lynskey praised it as a “comic tragedy of misdirected rage.”

When Oliver first heard this, he wondered, “What did I do wrong?” He told The Guardian. “I couldn’t really solve the problem.” Then his phone started ringing. Contrary to the song’s lyrics about how CMAT knew she shouldn’t be a “whore/Man has kids and they don’t like it,” Oliver’s daughters and their friends all loved it.

In February, coincidentally on CMAT’s 30th birthday, Oliver followed her on Instagram. She saw her chance and asked if he wanted to shoot a video for the song. Two days later, they were shooting at the new Leicester Square location in London for Jimmy’s, an Italian restaurant chain that the 50-year-old chef has revived, two weeks before its grand reopening. (After folding in 2019, the chain is now returning to the British high street.) “I have a huge respect for the creative arts and music, and I know how difficult it is now more than ever,” Oliver says. “When the CMAT team asked me to be in the video, I was there 100%.”

The clip, which premiered at CMAT’s headlining show at London’s Alexandra Palace on Friday night, cuts between CMAT and the so-called “very sexy CMAT band” performing in a 1960s TV-style studio, and Oliver getting anxious during a stressful day in the restaurant kitchen. He disappears into his office and watches CMAT on a television, inspiring an escape fantasy: cut to her appearing in his empty restaurant and lamenting the song’s climax while Oliver plays the drums, just as he did in The Crimson Oath. CMAT says it “remains aware of this”. “You never lost him.” Not only were his team “amazing,” she adds, “they fed us very nicely after we finished working.”

Oliver recalls that the shoot was chaotic, taking place “during a week of training for the chefs and staff” at the new restaurant. “The furniture was still arriving, and we hadn’t finished decorating yet… My team thought I was completely crazy, but they loved it.” As he does, he chats with CMAT about food, life and “the beauty of having a string section on the track, and the fact that her drummer comes from Essex,” as he does. “It was about laughing, and I’ve always been a big believer that you should be able to laugh at yourself.”

For Shell sandwiches, “I was just trying to improve the game at the gas station, trying to get some decent food options for people on the go,” he explains. He understands what CMAT was doing in the song now. “We all live in a world where we make assumptions without understanding the whole picture.” But he hopes “you’ll find me less annoying now.”

These days, Oliver can be found listening to Portuguese singer-songwriter Maru, British stars Lowell Carner and Tom Misch, and UK garage godfather MJ Cole, “and obviously I’m a fan of all the British pop music that’s coming back.”

Will CMAT return the favor and participate in Oliver’s upcoming special celebration? “I think my invitation is in the post,” she says.