While her unfussy approach to cooking has earned her a band of cultlike followers, British papers have other reasons to closely track Lawson's personal life. She became popular around the same time her husband and the father of her children, journalist John Diamond, was fighting cancer. Since his death in 2001 and her remarriage to ad-agency mogul Charles Saatchi (who has a 12-year-old daughter, Phoebe, from a previous marriage), rumors have circulated. "I've had stories that I'm pregnant for so long that I must have the gestation period of five elephants," she says.
In fact, Lawson says, she lives a "hermitlike" existence that's short on tabloid fodder. On a typical day, she takes the kids to school and works on her books and food columns at home until they return. During the 10 weeks a year that she spends filming, things are more hectic—and around-the-table family dinners don't always happen. But no matter how time-crunched Lawson is, there are some quick-meal routes she just won't take: "My son recently said to me, 'You have no idea how delicious KFC is.' And I said, 'I'm sure you're right, but I'm not gonna give it to you.'"
