Marco Pierre White Jr was arrested again this week after a series of robberies and a decade of trouble in the spotlight.
Son of the youngest chef to earn the coveted three Michelin stars, Marco Jr has secured his own space in the headlines thanks to his wildly rebellious antics.
The former reality TV star has battled drug addiction and her father has reportedly paid more than £1million over the years for multiple stints in rehab.
Marco and his older brother Luciano and younger sister Mirabelle grew up in London, the son of Marco Sr., who is credited with being a major influence on other prominent British chefs, and his third wife, Mati Conejero.
Speaking to MailOnline in 2016, Mati, who is now separated from her son, recalled how Marco, who she calls Mini, always seemed to struggle in the shadow of her famous father.
‘Mini never had to answer for his actions. “He was a beautiful boy who grew up to be a beautiful young man, but his life has not been easy growing up in the shadow of someone like Marco,” Mati said at the time.
Marco Pierre White Jr was arrested again this week after a series of robberies and a decade of trouble in the spotlight.
Son of the youngest chef to earn the coveted three Michelin stars, Marco Jr has secured his own space in the headlines thanks to his wildly rebellious antics.
The former reality TV star has battled drug addiction and her father has reportedly paid more than £1million over the years for multiple stints in rehab.
Mati said she blamed her ex-husband and his fame and fortune for Marco Jr.’s “sense of entitlement,” explaining: “Marco was always too busy working to do much with them. However, he would get irritated with me if they later got bored and started playing.’
‘Everything revolved around the restaurants. A simple planned trip to the park would end up not happening because we would first go to meet Marco at his restaurant Frankie’s in Knightsbridge.
“I guess it’s not surprising that Mini behaved so badly,” he continued. ‘He set a pattern that continues to this day. In a way, it’s not his fault that he doesn’t know how to behave properly and that he doesn’t know social boundaries.’
‘He has grown up with a sense of entitlement. He’s the son of someone famous and therefore he’s well known, he’s rich and he can do whatever he wants.’
This rebellious childhood only fell apart further when the family was forced to visit social services in Notting Hill when Marco Jr was a teenager. ‘Marco (father) sat there and everyone agreed that we could adapt our lives and his career to suit the boy’s needs. Even the social services were carried away by his charisma,” said Mati.
“It was around the time we started the divorce process, when Marco did the crazy thing of sending Mini to Thailand with a family friend. There he got his first tattoo.
Marco Jr, who criticized his mother’s tell-all interview at the time, has been open about his childhood struggles, recalling in an emotional conversation in the Big Brother house how he was attacked at school because of his father’s celebrity status.
Marco and his older brother Luciano and his younger sister Mirabelle grew up in London, the son of Marco Sr. and his third wife Mati Conejero.
Speaking to MailOnline in 2016, Mati, who is now separated from her son, recalled how Marco, who she calls Mini, always seemed to struggle in the shadow of her famous father.
“It’s horrible, I never had a normal life, when I was eight years old I was bullied because I was rich,” he told his housemates.
Despite his initial struggles, Marco Jnr has maintained a close relationship with his father to this day.
But he admitted falling out with the chef after spending £250,000 of his father’s money on “prostitutes, cocaine and alcohol” and claiming he had only agreed to take part in Big Brother to pay off debts.
After leaving school, Marco dabbled in art and modelling, but it was being the son of the award-winning chef, the label he was desperate to shake off as a child, that led to his spot in the Celebrity Big house. Brother in 2016. of 27.
However, the program did little to improve its reputation. Just a few days after starting the series,In some of the most shockingly explicit sexual scenes ever broadcast live on mainstream television, Marco Jr was seen kissing and stripping with housemate Laura Carter, taking a naked shower with her before sucking on her breast.
After leaving school, Marco dabbled in art and modeling before landing a place in the Celebrity Big Brother house in 2016.
Just days into the series, in some of the most shockingly explicit sexual scenes ever broadcast live on mainstream television, Marco Jr. was seen stripping with housemate Laura Carter.
The scenes sparked more than 600 complaints to broadcasting watchdog Ofcom, and days later Marco was the first celebrity to be booted from the show.
He left the house to a chorus of boos and a split with fiancée Kim Melville-Smith, following a “misunderstanding” over the definition of what a “hall pass” meant while on the reality show.
Marco’s fight with crime began four days after his exit from the reality show when he appeared before a magistrates’ court to answer a drug driving charge when he was stopped in a BMW X5 and found to have 200 mcg of cocaine in him. your body.
Since then, his multiple offenses have included shoplifting, possession of a knife and drug possession.
In January 2019, he was convicted and fined after calling police officers “shitholes” and “n*****s” while they tried to arrest him for being drunk and disorderly at a train station.
Then, in June 2019, he was ordered to pay more than £1,000 for being left out on a £27 bill at a restaurant after his debit card was declined.
The following month, it was reported that he had to be dragged “kicking and screaming” to a police station after being arrested for allegedly smashing windows during a row with his father in Wiltshire.
The scenes sparked more than 600 complaints to broadcasting watchdog Ofcom, and days later Marco was the first celebrity to be booted from the show.
In July 2019, he appeared in court accused of sneaking out of a cafe without paying his bill after his payment card was declined, loudly proclaiming who his father was.
His longest sentence was handed down in 2022, when, aged 27, he pleaded guilty to 14 offences, including carrying a knife and racial abuse, and received 18 months in prison.
After being released, Marco vowed to never touch drugs again after spending more than £1million on rehab.
He also revealed that he had converted to Islam to help him “stay clean” and reform after years of drug abuse which he said began when he was just 13 years old.
In an exclusive interview with MailOnline in 2023, he said: ‘I’ve been in rehab 17 times and being in prison has made me realize that enough is enough.
‘I’ve been to rehab all over the US and the UK and the only thing that has cured me is being beaten in a cell for 23 hours a day.
‘I have realized how lucky I am and have been. I’ve seen all walks of life in prison and some people don’t have a chance in life. I’ve had every opportunity and I’ve wasted them all.
Marco’s fight with crime began four days after his exit from the reality show when he appeared before a magistrates’ court to answer a drug driving charge.
‘I could have done anything I wanted, but instead I took heroin and ended up in prison. I’ve been an idiot.’
He added that he had the support of his father and had big plans to follow in his footsteps and become a chef.
The recovering drug addict also has motivation from his young daughter Arabella Rose and told Bacj in the 2013 interview that missing a year of his life while in prison had also made him determined to never use drugs again.
But 18 months later, last week the troubled star received a suspended sentence for a series of robberies.
Marco, who now lives in Weston-super-Mare, avoided jail after being sentenced to a 30-week suspended prison sentence for a series of robberies in his home town.
the orHe recently moved to Weston-super-Mare and his latest offense came just over two months after he was sentenced to eight weeks in jail for a series of robberies in Chippenham and Bath.