Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver disciplined his 12-year-old daughter, Poppy, by tricking her into eating an extremely hot pepper, The Daily Mail reported.
At the recent BBC Good Food Show, Oliver reportedly said:
"Poppy was quite disrespectful and rude to me and she pushed her luck. In my day I would have got a bit of a telling-off but you are not allowed to do that.
Five minutes later she thought I had forgotten and I hadn't. She asked for an apple. I cut it up into several pieces and rubbed it with Scotch Bonnet and it worked a treat. She ran up to mum and said, 'This is peppery.' I was in the corner laughing."
He said his wife Jools told him, "Don't you ever do that again."
Scotch Bonnets are among some of the world's spicier peppers. The hottest Scotch Bonnet would be 140 times spicier than the mildest jalapeño.
Scotch Bonnets range between 100,000 to 350,000 Scoville heat units (SHU). By comparison, the world's hottest pepper in 2014 — Carolina Reaper — measured 2,200,000 SHU.
Oliver, presumably joking, also said he gives his children chili peppers as punishment because it's "not very fashionable" to beat kids anymore.
"I give them chillies for punishment," The Daily Mail quoted Oliver as saying. "It is not very popular beating kids any more, it's not very fashionable and you are not allowed to do it and if you are a celebrity chef like me it does not look very good in the paper. So you need a few options."
Victoria's commissioner for children and young people criticized Oliver's method, saying it was a form of child abuse.
Bernie Geary called Oliver a "dickhead" on a local radio show. "It's just not appropriate to use cruelty as a form of discipline," Geary said.
Geary said Oliver should have realized that he is a high-profile figure and that his actions might influence others.
"If he's joking it's not even appropriate because some parents and families might think it's a legitimate or alternative way of disciplining children. He's way off the planet as far as I'm concerned," Geary said.