By Carla Zanoni

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

UPPER MANHATTAN — The body of a chef once featured on the Gordon Ramsay reality television show "Kitchen Nightmares" was found in the Hudson River on Friday.



Joseph Cerniglia, 39, was found at approximately 3 p.m. near West 145th Street shortly after 911 received a report of a man jumping from the George Washington Bridge, police said.

Cerniglia's death was ruled a suicide, the medical examiner told DNAinfo Monday afternoon.

His Italian restaurant Campania, located in Fair Lawn, N.J., was featured on a 2007 episode of "Kitchen Nightmares," a show where Ramsay takes a hard-nosed approach to turning around failing eateries.

In a grim foreshadowing of things to come, Ramsay had told Cerniglia during one of the episodes that his restaurant "is about to [expletive] swim down the Hudson," the New York Post reported.

The body of Joseph Cerniglia (R.) was found Friday at approximately 3 p.m. near West 145th Street. View Full Caption FOX.com

Cerniglia, who had three children, was nearly $200,000 in debt at the time of the show’s taping, according to a FOX episode guide. He had previously worked as the executive chef at Gallagher's Steakhouse on West 52nd Street in Manhattan before opening his own place in N.J.

He was reportedly the second chef who had appeared on television under Ramsay's tutelage to kill himself. The first one, Rachel Brown, shot herself to death in her family's Dallas home, the Post reported.

