As Adam Peaty’s new wife Holly speaks out to defend her dad Gordon Ramsay’s fiery wedding speech, an expert has uncovered the Olympian’s hidden dilemma over his surprise name change
12:00, 02 Jan 2026Updated 12:00, 02 Jan 2026
Adam Peaty appears to have made a huge change to his name(Image: PA)
Adam Peaty has put on a defiant front in the face of family chaos around his wedding to Holly Ramsay, but one bold decision will have left him “full of angst,” an expert has warned.
The former Olympic swimmer married the daughter of chef Gordon Ramsay at a lavish festive wedding at Bath Abbey in Somerset, with new photos from the big day showing just how close Adam is to his in-laws. The swimming champ’s loyal sister Bethany was his only relative in attendance after mum Caroline was banned from the guestlist.
And with notoriously outspoken Gordon reportedly alluding to Adam’s fall-out with his mother in his fiery wedding speech, it’s clear which side the sportsman has chosen. The Sun reports that Gordon commented on how beautiful Holly looked and told Adam he was a ‘lucky man’, adding: “Look at Tana and that’s what you have to look forward to.'” Gordon is then said to have made a dig at Adam’s absent parents he told his daughter Holly: “Shame you don’t have the same.” Defending her dad’s big moment on the mic, Holly told Vogue: “Listening to dad’s speech, looking around the room and feeling overwhelmed with the love and the happiness on our guests’ faces.”
READ MORE: Holly Ramsay’s three wedding dresses finally pictured – with touching nod to mum TanaREAD MORE: Staggering amount Holly Ramsay and Adam Peaty spent on gifts for their 200 guests
The Ramsay family had a big presence in the big day despite the absence of the Peaty family(Image: WireImage)
Adam and Holly are currently enjoying newlywed life on their glamorous honeymoon in Mauritius – a generous gift from the Ramsays – but not before the Olympian made a huge change to his surname. Debuting his new title on Instagram on Sunday, Adam will now seemingly go by Ramsay Peaty.
Newly released photos from his nuptials, shared by Vogue, show the same namesake scrawled across the couple’s wedding stationary – including a sign that read ‘Ramsay Peaty’s Bar’. It looks to be a decision that was made long before the big day itself, but one expert warns that it wouldn’t have come lightly for Adam, who has distanced himself from his distraught parents in recent months.
Body language expert and communications specialist Judi James tells The Mirror: “Adam’s situation with his family means he will be facing an ongoing, potentially life-time’s worth of difficult decisions that could range from the petty to the substantial if the rift isn’t somehow healed soon. A fall-out with family means murky, heart-breakingly complex calls about everything from sending birthday cards to making visits during illness or crisis. Every decision will have deep significance to both sides and each one of them will be painful to make.
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“Adam’s name change seems to have been one of them and it has probably cost him a lot of angst to get ‘right’. Of course it’s possible and even likely that his blending of the two names was merely done in his capacity as a modern man who makes no assumptions about his wife automatically taking his name, but so much depends on optics and perception during any family crisis and, by adding his wife’s name, not in the more usual double-barrel, and putting it first, it could easily be seen to be symbolic of moving his own family name further away.”
In the build-up to the wedding, Adam and his influencer wife made their loyalties clear when they jetted off on a Christmas holiday to Finland with Holly’s famous family. The Peatys remained firmly out in the cold, with mum Caroline’s 60th birthday apparantly going uncelebrated by the pair.
The young couple enjoyed romantic sleigh rides and excursions to see the breathtaking beauty of the Northern Lights with the Ramsays. Back at home, they also dined at Gordon’s Lucky Cat restaurant before the wedding, and headed to Robun Japanese sushi restaurant and cocktail bar with Gordon, Tana, and Holly’s sister Tilly, 24. Adam’s young son George was also there.
Holly Ramsay and Adam Peaty have jetted off on a festive trip days before their nuptials(Image: INSTAGRAM)
Although taking the Ramsay name may feel like a bitter blow for the Peatys, Judi explains it could actually signal a compromise. She explains: “The move suggests immersion in his new family. It seems to signal that he is now a Ramsay as much as a Peaty. It seems to have been a decision made early too, rather than something to debate at length after the magical day itself. In some ways it looks like a decision that could be a sign of mature evaluation and a desire to compromise. He could have dropped his family name altogether, so using both might have been a desire to make everyone as happy as possible in a very difficult time.
Mum Caroline has been very vocal on her heartbreak over the feud. On New Year’s Eve, the devastated mum said she’s ‘lost a piece of herself’ and admitted she was ‘praying for peace’ in 2026 after the fallout. She also poke out shortly before Adam tied the knot with Holly, revealing she felt as though the couple had ‘cut out her heart’ with the brutal snub, which reportedly began after Caroline bought a dress for the big day which the bride and groom didn’t approve of.
Then, days after Adam and Holly said ‘I do’, the Olympian’s shared two cryptic posts which appeared to reference her fallout with her son. The first was a sketch of a robin and a ladybird sat together on a twig with the words written below: “Just a little reminder that you don’t have to make resolutions, or huge decisions, or big proclamations. You can just set some sweet intentions and take each day as it comes.”
The bitter feud between Adam and his family meant they were left out of the big day(Image: @caroline_peaty/Instagram)
The second quote read: “I won’t end this year pretending everything was fine. I lost a piece of myself this year that I will never get back, and I’m not forcing a smile like it didn’t change me. So no… I won’t be saying ‘2026 is going to be my year’. I’ll be praying that I recover next year, that my heart never has to break like this again, that I never have to survive something like this again. I’ll be praying for peace… real peace, the kind that lets me breathe without fighting for it. I deserve a year that doesn’t hurt.”
And Judi warns that any family decision will unfortunately be very difficult going forward for Caroline’s son. “Adam is likely looking at the start of what could be a long period of attempts at creating mature-looking compromises. Every photo posted or birthday card sent or unsent will need to be evaluated from both his wife and his own familly’s point of view now.
“This looks like one of the bolder statments but there will be many, many more to follow unless the rift can be healed as quickly as possible because there are no emotional winners in situations like this, sadly.”
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