Former MasterChef winners have rallied around the BBC series as it faces criticism for returning to screens, with the new episodes featuring sacked hosts Gregg Wallace and John Torode.
MasterChef champion Thomas Frake, who won the series in 2020, and Greek chef Irini Tzortzoglou, who was crowned in 2019, have both said they support the BBC’s decision to air the controversial episodes.
“The past few months have been very, very sad,” Tzortzoglou, who released the cookbook Under the Olive Tree and began hosting culinary retreats across Europe after her MasterChef success, told The Independent.
“If I had gone through all that – the highs and lows – then somebody said to me, ‘Well actually, we may not show the three months of your life when you spilled your blood and guts to see how far you could go,’ I’d be very unhappy. I’m very thrilled to see it on our screens.”
Frake, owner of The Silks pub in Marlborough, Wiltshire, credits his time on MasterChef with his subsequent success in the hospitality industry. The chef noted the programme is a “huge operation” and said pulling the series would have affected the livelihoods of both the contestants and production crew.
“They’re not just characters on a screen,” he said of this year’s cast. “They turned up, they cooked …[but] they’re not the champion until it goes out on TV.”
The BBC’s decision to air this year’s MasterChef faced opposition from the broadcast union Bectu and leading women’s rights organisation the Fawcett Society, who said broadcasting episodes featuring Torode and Wallace would distress the people who made complaints about the two men.
Wallace’s return to the BBC was deemed “untenable” this July when an investigation into historical misconduct upheld 45 of 83 allegations against the presenter, including claims of inappropriate sexual language and one incident of unwelcome physical contact.
Torode, who alongside Wallace had presented the programme since 2005, was sacked a day after the results of the investigation came out, as the same report upheld a complaint against him involving “an extremely offensive racist term”.
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Tzortzoglou told this paper she thought the BBC should have placed a disclaimer on instalments of the 21st series, which was filmed before the inquiry last year but launched this week, to “be sensitive” and “give some credence” to the people who feel the decision to air the episodes featuring Torode and Wallace was wrong.
Some viewers said they felt “conflicted” seeing the hosts on screen after initial episodes of this year’s MasterChef aired. One contestant, Sarah Shafi, agreed to be edited out of the series after objecting to it being broadcast over concerns it sent the wrong message to women following the allegations against Wallace.
Tzortzoglou argued the BBC “has actually taken steps to be sensitive” by featuring the contestants – rather than the MasterChef presenters – in promotional materials for the programme ahead of its release. “But the idea that it might not show it at all is beyond my comprehension,” she said.
Amid the crisis, the chef urged viewers to “give the programme and the contestants a chance” as the series continues to air over the next seven weeks. “The programme wasn’t just the presenters,” she reasoned. “The presenters were very public faces – but they were only two people.”
Tzortzoglou and Frake aren’t the only MasterChef alums to support the show’s decision to air in recent weeks. Winner of the 2022 Professionals edition, Nikita Pathakji, 2021 finalist Madeeha Qureshi, 2022 finalist Pookie Tredell and 2006 finalist Dean Edwards have all backed the series being released.
Members of last year’s cohort – finalist Louise MacLeod, and quarter finalists Fateha Khanom Ali and Steve Deakin – have also voiced their approval online, as well as 2024 Professionals chef Ritchie Stainsby and 2022 semi-finalist James Skelton.
“We do support each other,” Tzortzoglou said of the relationship between MasterChef contestants across series from many different years. “The idea of ‘they have gone through what you went through’ somehow brings you closer together,” she said. “You feel like you all belong to this little club.”
Frake added that he’s optimistic that this year’s MasterChef cohort will see the hospitality success they deserve – despite their series being shrouded in scandal. “I think they’re going to have the exact same opportunities, fingers crossed for them, that all the champions before them, myself included, have had.”
