Jamie Oliver is officially the world’s richest celebrity chef, according to the Daily Star, who report that he’s currently placed at number 501 in the Sunday Times’ Rich List.

That puts his bank balance at a goodly amount more than rival TV chefs Gordon Ramsay, Delia Smith and Heston Blumenthal – to name but a few – with his estimated personal wealth being around £150million.

And that is of course thanks to his innumerable TV shows, cookery books and his chain of restaurants.

Jamie – who left formal education with just two GCSEs and an NVQ in Home Economics – now plans to expand his restaurant empire to the States, has seen several of his books become best sellers within weeks of them hitting the shelves…

In fact, they are so hugely popular with readers that Jamie – who was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2003 – is only just behind JK Rowling in terms of amount of UK sales.

Not bad for an Essex lad is it? Especially when you consider that he didn’t appear on our screens until 1999 when his first series The Naked Chef made him a household name.

If you want to know which 500 people are richer than Jamie, you can find out in tomorrow’s Sunday Times. Alas, you will not see my name on there…

Sigh.