Joseph Cerniglia Suicide Sparks Renewed Interest In Rachel Brown’s Death

By James K on September 28th, 2010

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Joseph Cerniglia, a New Jersey restaurant owner who was featured in a 2007 episode of the reality TV program Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, was found dead in the Hudson River near W. 145^th Street in Manhattan on Friday, September 24, 2010. The NYPD ruled Cerniglia’s death a suicide.

A witness reportedly saw a man leap off the George Washington Bridge on Friday and immediately called police. Cerniglia’s body was pulled from the Hudson River a short time later, near W. 145^th Street in Manhattan.

While Cerniglia’s motives remain a mystery, he admitted during his episode of Kitchen Nightmares that he was deeply in debt and struggling to manage all his financial obligations. Ramsay played a pivotal role in fully revamping the restaurant’s menu and business practices, and Cerniglia’s restaurant, Campania, became much more successful after the episode aired.

During the episode, Ramsay was harshly critical of Cerniglia’s handling of his business, telling him at one point that his “business [was] about to swim down the f—ing Hudson.”

You may want to think twice before you go on a reality show with Gordon Ramsay, as Cerniglia is the second contestant to commit suicide after appearing on a Ramsay-hosted kitchen reality show. In 2007, Rachel Brown, who finished fifth on an episode of Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen, shot herself to death in her parents’ Texas home.