Here's a sobering story 

[Joseph Campania is on the left]

A New Jersey restaurateur once featured on Gordon Ramsay's "Kitchen Nightmares" -- and told by the TV chef that his debt-ridden eatery was "about to swim down the Hudson" -- was eerily found floating in the river after jumping off the George Washington Bridge.

Joseph Cerniglia, the 39-year-old owner of Campania in Fair Lawn, is the second chef to commit suicide after appearing on one of Ramsay's high-heat, reality-cooking series.

Cerniglia -- once the executive chef at Manhattan's famed Gallagher's Steak House -- had been deeply in debt when his Italian eatery was featured in the first season of "Kitchen Nightmares" in 2007.

During the series, foul-mouthed celebrity foodie Ramsay would verbally bash down-on-their-luck restaurateurs in hopes of getting them back on track.

"Your business is about to f - - king swim down the Hudson," the brash Brit berated Cerniglia, a married dad of three who lived in Pompton Lakes.

Ramsay fumed about the eatery's huge portions, lousy food quality, poor service and the sophomoric antics of the kitchen staff.  

Cerniglia's wife, Melissa, sobbed during the show, "People like us put everything on the line for a dream, and I just want to see him have the time to succeed.

"If this business fails, we will lose everything."

Cerniglia's business managed to survive after Ramsay made a series of changes and held a grand reopening.  In fact, patrons yesterday said the eatery had been thriving.  "The place is really doing well -- the parking lot is packed on weekends," said a woman who works at the tanning salon next door.

Another salon worker, Evelina Grzymala, 22, said Cerniglia was grateful to Ramsey for helping him turn his business around.

"[Cerniglia] said Ramsey was intense but that he turned out to be a nice guy, that in the end, he helped him out," Grzymala recalled. (nypost.com)

So if things we looking up, I wonder why this guy took his life?  And do you think that some of these "reality shows" today go a bit too far in the name of entertainment?