Melissa Leong: ‘life Is Not Easy. Life Is Ugly And Hard And Unpredictable’

At location successful Melbourne’s Carlton North, Melissa Leong is emotion apprehensive. She’s preparing to walk nan time talking astir her caller memoir, Guts, which reveals individual struggles she has ne'er earlier spoken astir publicly.

“This portion – laying yourself bare, truthful to speak, aggregate times a time – is challenging,” she says. “It’s mentally challenging. It’s emotionally challenging.”

The former MasterChef judge and Dessert Masters big describes herself arsenic an introvert, a backstage personification who likes to retreat and retrieve aft a time connected set. In her memoir, Leong has recovered a measurement to equilibrium that request for privateness pinch being vulnerable. She shares her battles pinch slump and anxiety, bouts of loneliness while filming MasterChef, and her experiences of bulimia, self-harm and intersexual violence.

A moving thread is Leong’s propensity for “blowing up” her life. She writes astir leaving a unafraid occupation to unrecorded connected a sheep dairy successful Tasmania, and her divorce. “I person go a spot of an master astatine it,” she writes, though she’s wary of encouraging others to do nan same.

“If you are going to push nan large reddish button, you do request to beryllium prepared for immoderate fallout, because it’s inherently a selfish thing,” Leong says. “And erstwhile I opportunity selfish, I don’t mean selfish successful a bad way.

“There are definite things we person travel to realise, arsenic women, that we tin do and person for ourselves and our friends that don’t impact subscribing to societal norms.”

‘I’ve met a batch of group that person tried to group maine back, and that’s OK because guidance gives you thing tangible to push against.’ Photograph: Charlie Kinross/The Guardian

Leong says she unopen herself distant to constitute astir what felt existent to her, including her puerility successful nan predominantly achromatic suburb of Cronulla, Sydney, successful nan 80s; really chronic symptom halted a promising philharmonic profession (she started playing nan soft aged three); her activity arsenic a constitution artist; quitting her first firm occupation and breaking into nan – amazingly dispute astatine nan clip – world of nutrient writing.

“There’s a small sweetness successful moving your ain race, emerging triumphant, and realising that everybody who didn’t judge you could do it is conscionable measurement backmost there,” Leong says. “I’ve met a batch of group that person tried to group maine backmost and that’s OK because guidance gives you thing tangible to push against.”

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The 43-year-old called her book Guts because she wanted nan title to definitive visceral discomfort. “Life is not easy. Life is disfigured and difficult and unpredictable, and often little than ideal, and I liked that successful 1 syllable you person this connection that is loaded.”

She’s buoyed up by others successful nan manufacture who person written memoirs, including Kumi Taguchi, whom she met during her clip astatine SBS arsenic a judge connected The Chef’s Line, which she calls “MasterChef pinch training wheels”. She feels she’s successful bully institution alongside women telling analyzable stories. “Having group for illustration Kumi connected my broadside and successful my area person helped galvanise me.”

Leong writes that she has travel to judge she was raped astir 15 years ago. She doesn’t sanction nan perpetrator but she hopes that sharing her communicative mightiness thief others.

“The peculiar configuration of experiences I’ve had are excavation but these are things that person happened to our friends, sisters, mothers, cousins.

“I stock these things because I cognize that they’re not unsocial to me, and truthful if I tin articulate them successful a measurement that possibly personification other can’t articulate yet to themselves, if that intends they consciousness little alone, past that’s a occurrence to me.”

Hosting UFC Fight Week ‘was arsenic acold successful nan other guidance arsenic I could imagine’. Photograph: Charlie Kinross/The Guardian

Now Leong is unapologetic astir prioritising herself, “because for nan mostly of my life I person been a people-pleaser”.

“I person wanted to make different group astir maine happy to nan detriment of my health, my wealthiness and myself, really.”

She jokes astir not knowing if it’s property aliases perimenopause, but “if 1 of nan side-effects is that I springiness little fucks, past I don’t care”.

Leong endured disapproval from nan infinitesimal she was announced arsenic nan first female MasterChef judge successful 2020. In nan aftermath of her cohost Jock Zonfrillo’s decease successful 2023, she was further criticised for choosing to grieve privately. In Guts, Leong describes MasterChef arsenic “a group of aureate handcuffs” – astatine erstwhile a tremendous opportunity and besides limiting.

“I’m really proud of nan clip I put in; I learned a lot, I grew a lot, but I besides conscionable arsenic as wanted to proceed moving, truthful that nan expectations group had for maine weren’t capable to atrophy astir me.”

After hosting 2 seasons of Dessert Masters, Leong took an unexpected pivot to hosting UFC Fight Week. “It was arsenic acold successful nan other guidance arsenic I could imagine,” she says.

She’s a immense instrumentality of mixed martial arts and is astir 18 months into jiujitsu training, moving towards a 3rd stripe connected her achromatic belt. “It’s nan correct operation of quality small heart and captious thinking. Plus, it’s a awesome workout. If you’re stressed, getting really sweaty and exhausted a mates of times a week is rather good, for maine anyway.”

Leong has besides vanished filming a caller show successful New Zealand called Taste of Art, pinch nan Amisfield executive chef, Vaughan Mabee. Though nan show is “back successful nan world of nutrient – and studios and dresses and good dining,” she hopes viewers will spot an improvement successful her career.

She’s besides connected screens now arsenic a contestant successful The Amazing Race Australia: Celebrity Edition, swapping designer dresses and heels for tie-dye T-shirts and trainers. It’s been “quite freeing” to relinquish power and beryllium astatine nan whim of reality TV’s gameplan, she says. “Being capable to conscionable spot was a awesome workout for me. I americium a large subscriber to: conscionable motion connected to each acquisition life offers you.

“I deliberation we study a batch astir ourselves done being uncomfortable. And not each of those lessons are soft, fluffy, kind, bully things but they’re nevertheless incredibly valuable.”

This accuracy helped pinch sharing nan darker parts of her life successful Guts. Any doubts were “overshadowed by nan truth”, she says. “If I’m going to show my communicative past I’m going to show my story. I can’t sugar-coat nan less-than-ideal things that person happened to me.

“These are things that person very overmuch shaped maine successful nan choices I’ve made successful my life. The past fewer years person been a batch astir endurance and not overmuch else, if I’m honest. But I beryllium present now really proud of what I’ve been capable to accomplish.”

• Information and support for anyone affected by rape aliases intersexual maltreatment is disposable astatine 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other world helplines tin beryllium recovered astatine ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html. The Butterfly Foundation is astatine 1800 33 4673. Support is besides disposable astatine Beyond Blue connected 1300 22 4636, and Lifeline connected 13 11 14

• Guts by Melissa Leong is retired now (Murdoch Books, $34.99)