"It's Not My Shame To Bear" - Uncut with Melissa Leong

It’s likely that you’d recognise Melissa Leong’s face, she was the first female judge ever on Masterchef Australia; but today’s conversation goes into some very personal places that extend far beyond what you might see on prime time TV. She burst onto our screens in 2020 and made us fall in love with food and cooking. Her new memoir ‘Guts’ is a raw, funny and beautifully written look at her upbringing in a Singaporean - Chinese family, the behind the scenes of the food and entertainment world and some personal stories that she hadn’t shared publicly before. 

• Growing up with strict, authoritarian immigrant parents and ending up in a creative profession 
• Being no contact with her dad
• The path that led Melissa to not having kids
• Being single and getting so much connection from other areas of life
• “How to” divorce if you’re in the public eye and the advice she was given of when and how to announce it
• When the opportunity to host masterchef came knocking and Melissa didn’t jump at it
• Dissociating after SA and having memory loss from the time
• Realising that it is not her shame to bear
• Happiness being ‘far too fleeting a concept to hang your hat on’ and finding purpose in being content instead
• Being involved in the UFC - how, why and naked choke holds 
• What’s next for Melissa
  
  

You can get yourself a copy of “Guts” through this link 

You can follow Melissa on Instagram 

And check out her website 

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Hosted by Britt Hockley & Keeshia Pettit 

Produced by Keeshia Pettit

Video Produced by Vanessa Beckford

Recorded on Cammeraygal Land

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode was recorded on Cameragle Land. Hi guys, and
welcome back to another episode of Life. I'm cut, I'm Brittany,
and I'm Keisha.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
And today we are speaking to the first female judge
ever on Master Cheff Australia, Melissa Leon.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
And you're you're looking at me strangely. I hope that's right,
is it?

Speaker 3 (00:24):
No? No? Okay, you're nodding nodding along.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
She first outed our screens back in twenty twenty.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
And I think for many Australians, but me in particular,
made us fall in love with food and cooking because
spoiler Melissa, I am the worst cook and I detest it.
Like if I can throw a dino nugget in the air, friyl,
I'm laughing.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
I think it's brilliant. I'm seeing Melissa's face, like, what.

Speaker 4 (00:46):
Is a dino nugget?

Speaker 3 (00:46):
That is a chicken nugget in the shape.

Speaker 4 (00:48):
Of a dinast Okay, wonderfully thirty eight wonderful, wonderful.

Speaker 3 (00:52):
Look. There should always be room in life for nugs.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Thank you? And why not make them fun?

Speaker 3 (00:58):
And why and why not make them dinosaurs? Because you can.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Her new memoir Guts is a raw funny, very beautifully
written look at her upbringing in a Singapore and Chinese
family and correct me if I'm wrong again. But you
grew up in Sydney in the Shire, which for those
plane at home, the Shire is like Crinulla. It's an
area of Sydney down south, beautiful era. But you share
a lot, Melissa in your book guts about your upbringing
and a lot of behind the scenes reality TV. But

(01:24):
I think something that was really interesting is you talk
about a lot of really hard things and some hard
conversations about your childhood and some things that you experienced
as an adult that I don't think you had shared
before and we haven't heard before.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
And lots of brand new things.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
Yeah, lots of brand new things. And we're gonna have
some of those hard conversations today as well.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
So welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
Thank you very much for having me.

Speaker 5 (01:46):
Before we get into the more serious hard conversations, we
ask all of our guests to share their most embarrassing story.
We feel it humbles everyone, it kind of puts us
in a safe place altogether.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
What is your accidentally unfiltered? Well, speaking of not being
able to cook when I was I think I would
have been about eight or nine years old. I was
even obsessed with food shows then, and I remember watching
this show and it was about, you know, cooking pasta,
and I was like, okay, I want to cook pasta.
And my mum was a nurse, and so she had

(02:20):
done a lot of night shift work when I was
a kid, and just so that there could be somebody
at home with us, so she was asleep at the
time I was watching. With school holidays, I was at
home watching TV, and I thought, okay, this is great. Well,
we have dried pasta in the cupboard, and I think
I can just rustle up some pasta. No recipe, of course,
just like just a vibe, you know, a feeling. I

(02:41):
wanted a beautiful, rich, tomato based pasta. You know, the
sauce just coats the noodles and just makes makes that
pasta just so, you know, so glorious and rich and velvety,
and you know that's what I wanted. I was like,
I can do this, I can do this. And so
I started this recipe off with hot water in a
pan with raw onion, beef stock top tomatoes, and I

(03:01):
just expected this thing to amalgamate into this rich coating
aromatic tomatoes I made and then and I've ever made
because we grew up in the era of jarred sauces, right,
So I knew how to boil pasta at eight years old.
And you had to boil pasta, that's fine, and you
had to cook to ol dentate, no problem. But then
I also knew how to open a jar of you know,

(03:23):
creamy pisto sauce and stir it through. But in terms
of making a sauce, like the art that goes into
making a truly beautiful pasta sauce, no, I didn't have
that down at a.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
I think some people that is born with like an
innate desire to want to cook. And I think every
you know, people say it was time, like anyone can
learn to cook, and of course anyone can follow a recipe,
but that doesn't mean you're cooking in a way. And
I say that because I can follow a recipe, it's
still never I'm not even joking. It's still never tastes good.
It never turns out well. I don't know what I do,
but I think it's because you I don't have the

(03:59):
passion for it, and I cannot understand why anyone would
want to spend hours marinating and cooking and doing all
of these beautiful things for it to be eaten in
three seconds.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
Like to me, I don't understand it.

Speaker 3 (04:11):
You're not one for the ephemeral arts of food.

Speaker 1 (04:13):
I'll eat them.

Speaker 3 (04:14):
You like to eat it, but not to go see.
For me, there's something really calming and meditative about preparing food.
So it's artistry in motion. I'm thinking about things as
I'm moving around the aromas, like all of the sensory
elements of cooking and preparing food kind of gives me joy,
and I think that's what it is, right. It's like,

(04:35):
if it doesn't give you joy, then the end product
doesn't contain that joy and that love. Because you don't,
it's not your thing, and it's okay for it to
not be your thing. I mean, you put love and
joy and attention into your work and the other things
that you do, and the results speak for themselves. So
I think it's just that thing of finding whatever lights

(04:55):
you up and fills your cup and it happens to
be food for me. Yeah, you know, we've all had
kitchen fuck ups from time to time.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
I actually love that. I've never heard cooking being spoken
about like that.

Speaker 4 (05:08):
I both have partners who are exactly those people who
find so much joy and pleasure out of food and cooking.

Speaker 5 (05:15):
I think that our problem is actually patients. I think
you and I don't have the patience to like, let
things take as long as they're supposed to.

Speaker 3 (05:22):
But it's complimentary. If you have a partner that loves
to cook, and that's a really good symbiotic relationship for you,
then I don't.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
I don't actually like my husband. I just want to
I just want someone to cook for me.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
Is that what I've been doing wrong? You don't have
to like No.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
That's overrated.

Speaker 3 (05:38):
They've got to bring.

Speaker 1 (05:39):
Skills, skills, that is skills.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
So you grew up in, by your own words, quite
a disciplinarian, authoritarian family, the daughter of migrant parents. And
there was a quote that your mum wrote in Guts
in a blurb.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
I'm still not sure what Melissa.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
Does for work, but her brother has just graduated as
a doctor, so now whatever she does is okay with me.

Speaker 4 (06:04):
She doesn't know I wrote that.

Speaker 3 (06:06):
She probably doesn't know. It's a joke.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
It was.

Speaker 5 (06:09):
It's a joke, but this actually spans across different families.

Speaker 4 (06:14):
Yeah, I mean my family.

Speaker 5 (06:15):
In anything in the creative industries, I think there's always
been a whole lot of we don't.

Speaker 4 (06:19):
Really get it.

Speaker 3 (06:20):
She talks, You're like, what is this? Somehow some people
listen exactly No, I look, it's a joke, but it's
it's something that I think a lot of families can
relate to, especially when they have quite traditional expectations of
who you're going to end up being. And thank God,
my brother's a doctor.

Speaker 1 (06:36):
Because then took the pressure off.

Speaker 3 (06:37):
Took the pressure off, you know, it took him a minute,
but he's a doctor now, so that's wonderful, and so
now I can continue being like the unhinged messone the corner.
No one quite knows what she does. But I think
when it became like TV was a really big crystallizing
moment for them, because it's like such a marquee obvious

(06:57):
sign of what I do for work because you can
you can watch it. Whereas I guess for me, I'm
a writer, so my byline is the most important thing,
and so I care very deeply about the way I
communicate in the written form. But for other people, especially
for family that don't quite get it, TV was really
the first time they.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
Went, oh it was more tangible.

Speaker 3 (07:17):
Yeah, you know, it's just it's such an obvious piece
of evidence for I guess success in a way indication
of success in your career.

Speaker 4 (07:24):
Yeah, did you feel those pressures growing up?

Speaker 3 (07:27):
Yeah? I did. I think I felt the pressure to
find a safe job. And so the expectation was the
joke about you know, doctor, lawyer, accountant, engineer, something like that,
something that's consistent and you know, well trodden boards. I
like to say, you know, like it's a path that
a lot of people take, and it's great if that's
the thing that you love to do. But feeling the

(07:48):
pressure to find the safe job didn't quite sit well
with me. From the very beginning. I knew that, you know,
you get that career's guidebook when you're in you know,
towards the end of high school.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
And we're showing our age. Now, I don't kids get that.

Speaker 3 (08:00):
No, God, it was probably an em It was like
a phone book, right, and now the people are there
are kids out there going what's the phone book like?
But it was just this gigantic book of descriptions on
jobs I didn't want, and I sort of I thought, well,
what if I can't pick one out of the hundreds
of jobs chosen so listed here, what if I don't

(08:24):
want one of those? And so that became the beginning
of I guess, finding my own path into career and work.
And yeah, there's it's been very, very piecemeal. There's been
no textbook way to get there.

Speaker 2 (08:37):
But I read some things just about how strict your
parents were. And I don't want to put words in
your mouth on how you label it, but you grew
up in a house as a child that was quite violent.

Speaker 3 (08:49):
Yep, it was a really strict upbringing. And I suppose
for a lot of people out there listening, anyone who's
grown up as the child of migrants or you know,
part of a migrant family, there's a level of disap
and you know, culturally it's different for everybody. But you know,
I have a lot of friends from the Latin world
that joke about, you know, throwing throwing sandals. You know,
for me, it was the feather duster and the chopsticks

(09:11):
over the fingers when I would make mistakes practicing the
piano and stuff like that. But it was a very
highly disciplined existence as a child. The expectations were that
we would We didn't have sort of chores, so to speak.
But the expectation was that our full time job was
to excel at everything that we did. So whether or
not that was piano, academics, sport, anything that we applied ourselves,

(09:36):
we had to give the very best. And so there's
a level of I guess, fear based parenting that happened
in the eighties. And you know, I don't want to
just I'm not claiming this as being something that only
happened in Chinese families. That happened to so many of
my friends with cultural backgrounds from all over the world.
I think for me the difference and you said, you
said violence and violence is such a visceral, it's such

(09:57):
a strong word. But I think for me, the way
that I've consolidated it as an adult is that, yes,
I'm somewhat grateful for the high degree of discipline I
grew up with, because it's given me a work ethic
like no other. But I think for me, the reason
why I'm no contact with my dad is that he
even as a child, the gut instinct was that there
was just a level of relishing the discipline and relishing

(10:22):
dolling it out that I felt even as a child,
that I can't make peace with And he's not sorry
because he said, this is just the way I was
taught to be. This is what I got growing up.
And that's fine, but for me, and partially why I've chosen,
you know, not to have children and things like that,
is because I want to break the cycle of that.

(10:42):
It wasn't good for me emotionally. I didn't feel safe
growing up. And now that I've done, you know, like
a ton of therapy since then, probably a lot of
the choices I've made in my life have been to
try and create the safety I didn't have as a kid,
That emotional safety of being able to go to a
parent and say, hey, I fucked up. I need some help.

(11:04):
I could never have done that instead of being petrified,
instead of being terrified.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
So was it enough for you as a child when
you say they wanted you to be the best at everything?

Speaker 1 (11:11):
Was it enough for you to try your best? Or
did you have to be the best?

Speaker 4 (11:15):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (11:16):
Absolutely it wasn't. There were there were no prizes for
turning up. It was about doing the things that you
were excellent at.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
And when you say, and I find this a really
fascinating chat because I'm thirty eight and we talk about
this quite frequently on the last in the last year
or so about this child was by choice and deciding if.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
You want to have children, and I just.

Speaker 2 (11:34):
Am undecided, which is, you know, I'm running out of
time and I hate saying that, but there's a biological clock.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
But when you say this.

Speaker 2 (11:43):
Is why I chose to be childless, child free because
I wanted to break the cycle?

Speaker 1 (11:48):
Were there are other parts that come into that decision?

Speaker 2 (11:51):
And I say that because you could have had children
and broken the cycle, because you know you were going
to never relive that you'll never be the.

Speaker 1 (11:57):
Person that your parents were. So what else kind of
came into this decision?

Speaker 3 (12:00):
You know? I mean, I won't say this is my
hardline choice. I've never wanted to have children because I
want to be a cycle break or anything like that.
You know. I sort of said to myself, if I
met the right person at the right time in my
life and children became a part of that equation, great,
I love kids. There are maternal qualities that I have
within myself. But I think in terms of you know,
my mum around when I was about thirty, my mom said, hey,

(12:24):
you know, do you want to consider freezing your eggs
and things like that, and this was this is a conversation,
and I'm so glad that we're having it more and
more as women these days. But back when I was thirty,
which is thirteen years ago, it was still considered a
privileged choice. And it's very expensive, it's quite invasive. There's
a lot, there's a lot going on there, and I

(12:44):
think it's really nice that there are now being legislative
conversations about supporting women to make those choices and to
supplement you know, what it costs to get there. But
I sort of thought to myself, well, let life be life.
But the more and more I think about it, yes,
I could have had children and maybe broken the cycle
through showing, you know, the next generation of kids a

(13:08):
different way and to be. But I don't know. I
just kind of thought, I don't maybe trust myself to
not perpetuate some of the things that I grew up
with because it's so instilled in us. And as much
as I am and I would like to think of
myself as being a fairly self aware person, we don't
know the things that just kind of creep out at us,

(13:28):
you know, as we're you know, as we're growing up,
we're fully fledged adults. Now you do things that you go, oh,
I didn't know where that came from.

Speaker 4 (13:36):
But also you've got a father who's saying to you
that he's not sorry for it because that's just how
he was brought up, and that I think that that
would even subconsciously infiltrate you to go, Okay, well, if
I'm in that same environment, is that the only way
that I'm able to respond. So absolutely been his reasoning
for what happened.

Speaker 3 (13:55):
Yeah, And so for me, you know, and I'm very
cognizant of the fact my dad's still alive. And I
don't want to be disrespectful about the way that I
talk about being parented, because I'm very grateful in many
ways for so much of the way that I grew up.
They sacrificed a lot for me to have the opportunities
I have. But I think as an adult now making

(14:15):
the choices, having the conversations that maybe we haven't had
in public, you know, in past years, I want to
be part of those conversations that maybe we can take
some of those things out of the dark, bring them
into the light. And destigmatize the complexities of interpersonal relationships
between generations and between cultures and each other.

Speaker 4 (14:35):
Did it take you a little while to kind of
come to peace with that decision and even to the
point where you might have come to peace with it personally,
but before you spoke about that with other people.

Speaker 3 (14:45):
Yeah, I think I had to come to peace with
it on my own before I could have a conversation
about it, because I needed to know how I felt.
And it's a really hard topic of conversation. And I'm
aware that people are going, oh my god, this memoir
is going to be so fucking dark.

Speaker 4 (14:58):
Look, it's really not.

Speaker 3 (15:00):
I would like to think it's really hopeful, as well
as being full of real conversations about different experiences we
all go through as women, as Australians, as people in
this world. I'm not unique in any way. It's just
my life is a configuration of experiences I've had. And
if we can share those conversations, if we can have

(15:22):
intelligent conversations about some of the hardest stuff and then
we feel a little less alone, or maybe we sparkle
conversation that's been needing to be had, then I feel
like that's a success for me and putting myself out there.

Speaker 1 (15:35):
How long since you've spoken to your dad?

Speaker 3 (15:37):
It would have been years at this point. Yeah. If
any information needs to exchange, it's done through my mum,
And you know, I speak to my mom almost every day.

Speaker 1 (15:45):
Are your parents together?

Speaker 3 (15:46):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (15:47):
Wow, So it's an unusual dynamic to have, not that
you've cut him off. I guess there's still some communication
through your mum for them. You would think that usually
a situation like that, maybe that your parents aren't together anymore.
So feeding the information through a couple that's still together
seems like a very particular dynamic.

Speaker 3 (16:05):
Yeah, I mean, I guess it works. However it works.
My mother lives in New South Wales. I live in Victoria,
so a lot of our communication is over the phone,
so it's sort of it's not like I go to
my parents' house and I just.

Speaker 1 (16:17):
Ignore my dad. Yeah yeah, in the bedroom.

Speaker 3 (16:19):
I haven't been to the family home in a very
long time. And my mum. I usually fly my mum
out to where wherever I am while she comes to
stay with me, and that's how we spend time together.
So you know, it's it's fine. And my brother lives
in Queensland. So we text and we might speak over
the phone.

Speaker 2 (16:35):
But yeah, have you ever teeated in your brain and
your own decision about having kids or have you had
a really confident, stable decision this entire time, like you
made it to be child free and that was it?

Speaker 5 (16:46):
Asking for a friend British No, I I yeah, asking
for myself.

Speaker 1 (16:52):
No, I think it's I think it's really interesting.

Speaker 3 (16:55):
No, I've never been hardline about it. So no, I'm
never going to have kids. I have always been of
the belief that we just let life happen and if
that's on the cards, and that's on the cards. But
coming back to we were talking about IVF before, we
were talking about you know, freezing your eggs. The reason
why I didn't end up freezing my eggs in the
end is because I thought, I just want to leave

(17:15):
it up to chance. And so if it happens I'm
with the right partner at the right time and I
can do it, then it will happen. If it doesn't,
then it doesn't. And I'm just going to leave that
one up to the universe. And so it's just been
the way that it is. You know, at forty three,
I don't have. You know, I'm not really harboring the
desire to be a parent at this age, but I

(17:35):
guess if I wanted to, I could. There are still
options available in other ways, and that's that's really wonderful.
So but yeah, for me, I'm at peace with where
I am in terms of my life and the way
that I'm living it, and I think that it's a
unique choice for everybody. As long as you're good with
where you are where you're at, then more power to you.

Speaker 1 (17:54):
I think you're very right though that.

Speaker 5 (17:56):
You know, when your mum asked you that question about
freezing eggs thirteen years ago, there was a lot more
stigma about women who didn't want to have children or
perhaps wanted to focus more on other things like their
careers and that kind of thing.

Speaker 4 (18:10):
And I was considered selfish totally.

Speaker 5 (18:12):
The amount of words selfish, self indulgent, You were obsessed
with yourself, you were too determined, you know, there'd been
too much of a push towards feminism.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
And also just that that's what we're on the earth
to do.

Speaker 3 (18:22):
Yeah, yeah, completely, the question of don't you want to
experience the fullest extent of being a woman, I'm like, no,
it's that Sorry, No, I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 (18:33):
Who's going to look after you when you're older? That's
like you're having children does not guarantee that someone is
going to want to look after you when you're older.

Speaker 4 (18:40):
That's why Britt got a younger man.

Speaker 3 (18:42):
Who can cook years younger.

Speaker 2 (18:46):
He's only five years younger, but my ex before he
was seven years younger.

Speaker 3 (18:49):
The cook and cooks. I'm just like, I know, I'm
writing a mental list. He's a unicorn fantastic. Well, well,
you know, we love we love the unicorns. It's nice
to know that they exist.

Speaker 1 (18:59):
Yeah, are you talking about your relationship love life? Are
you off the market?

Speaker 3 (19:04):
I know I'm not off the market. I'm I'm market.

Speaker 4 (19:07):
I know I actually gave myself.

Speaker 3 (19:12):
Next up. I'm not number fifty four. Melissaly young for
it does all right for herself. Homeowner loves cats.

Speaker 1 (19:26):
Yeah, what's the love life like? What's dating like?

Speaker 3 (19:28):
Been non existent? Dating life have been like for you?
Dating life has been non existent? Oh? No, Look is
that by choice? That's most that's mostly.

Speaker 4 (19:36):
By choice, because you know all the you know.

Speaker 3 (19:39):
All the memes about just you know, someone knocking on
the door and just being like, hi, I'm here, I'm
your soulmate. Yeah, as a fellow house like I'm working
or I'm at home trying to recover from working. I
have a tremendously close group of friends that I want
for nothing. When it comes to emotional care. I have

(20:00):
a great therapist. I earn my own money, I own
my own home. I'm independent in every single way, which
isn't to say that I am not open to opening
my life up and leaning on someone. I want to
lean on someone, but I need to know that you
can hold me.

Speaker 5 (20:19):
Up and hold yourself and you know I'm not going
to be there to be your national carrier.

Speaker 3 (20:24):
That a frame thing, right, You've got to be able
to lean on each other. And my past is I've
not made the smartest of choices and I have not
been held up. And so if I know I can
hold myself up, then why would I relinquish that for
anything less than a unicorn?

Speaker 1 (20:43):
It definitely changes.

Speaker 2 (20:44):
I think when you get a little bit older too,
you realize that your time is such a hot commodity.

Speaker 1 (20:49):
It's like the most important commodity.

Speaker 2 (20:50):
And you just don't want to It gets to a
point where, like I think, when you're a bit younger,
you're a bit more lenient with breaking boundaries and letting
people in that probably shouldn't be because you're like, well,
I've got nothing to lose, and why not. And you know,
I'm young and I haven't learned, I haven't lived yet.
And you get a bit older and you realize, you
know what, I don't have time for it.

Speaker 1 (21:05):
And I don't think bad.

Speaker 3 (21:06):
Boy, the red flag, so od tattoos, amazing, No sociopathic,
Oh he's really he's really confident. Narcissists like you just.

Speaker 4 (21:20):
Social bath well, say you're in good company, you know
what I mean?

Speaker 3 (21:23):
Like, we do give people the benefit of a doubt.
I think also as women, we give people the benefit
of a doubt more than they probably deserve as well.
And I don't want to ever be that closed off
person that won't trust anybody. I do believe that humanity
is about connection, and I want to always leave myself
open to that. I'm a hopeless romantic in that regard.

(21:45):
In terms of friendship's relationships, the way that we build
communities together I think is so important. But yeah, I'm
becoming more discerning about the people that I let into
my life, and the app suck oh if when you
were ever on them?

Speaker 2 (22:01):
I met my husband on an app. Yeah, but he
was supposed to be my first ever one night stand.
We were supposed to bang and then get out of there.
I see him again. Yeah, and I married him. Oh
my gosh.

Speaker 1 (22:12):
So it's like, it's not all bad. My sister got married.

Speaker 3 (22:15):
The Daily Mail headline. Now I just banged my one
night stand. Now he's my husband.

Speaker 1 (22:19):
It is.

Speaker 2 (22:20):
It was like the first time I ever in all
of my dating history. I was single for about ten years,
but he was the first time where I genuinely did
not care, like.

Speaker 1 (22:30):
The first person to just.

Speaker 3 (22:32):
Live a little show, caution to the wind, have a
little bit of fun. That is our you know, that
is our right and our choice to get to have
fun like that.

Speaker 1 (22:40):
But I think they app to get a bad rap.
They are bad.

Speaker 3 (22:43):
They are terrible. My friend made me do it for
like I was. I was on there for a week. No. No,
I did that one time before I was married, and
that was not that was not good. Yeah, it was
very like this is my CV Like they're very like,
who are you?

Speaker 1 (22:57):
What do you do?

Speaker 4 (22:58):
We actually spoke recently about the fact that currently people
are using LinkedIn almost as a dating No, I don't know.
I mean I want to married. So yeah, it was
like that sounds like more homework.

Speaker 3 (23:10):
No, my friend had a really great experience with it.
She's met the love of her life on there, and
she said, look, give it a try. So we had
over lunch, you know, she took my phone, she downloaded
the app. We put it on there, and you know,
went through it and I am out of like, I
didn't know which way.

Speaker 1 (23:25):
So you said yesterday, So I said yes.

Speaker 3 (23:26):
And it was like a guy who worked in the
food industry like this, he was a wine maker or something,
and immediately he messaged me. So I deleted the whole
app out of a panic, just panic deleted it. I
didn't know what to do.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
And I was like, oh, I think if we unpack this.
When you said the apps are terrible, I don't think
it's the apps.

Speaker 3 (23:46):
No, but I use the error. I re downloaded it
and I committed to ten minutes a day. I said
ten minutes a day. Approve three, just like straight yes
to three, just to give it a go, just to
get into the practice of it. But I mean, look,
show you. I've got a little gallery of some of
the cram to the cram of what I found when
you set the parameters the way that I did. I

(24:09):
don't know what I did wrong.

Speaker 1 (24:10):
But have you said, have you been on a date ever?

Speaker 3 (24:13):
Of No? No, I haven't. I've chatted to a few people,
but it hasn't never first.

Speaker 1 (24:18):
I don't know, Like.

Speaker 3 (24:19):
Chemistry wise, I'm a writer. This should be my jam,
But I have no reason when it.

Speaker 4 (24:23):
Comes to DOC But I think that probably is the reason.
Because you are so articulate.

Speaker 5 (24:28):
It's hard to get that back from other people using
an app. You know, like it's got to be a
two way street trying to respond to you.

Speaker 1 (24:33):
Up, you are like what is it?

Speaker 3 (24:36):
W White like what we do?

Speaker 1 (24:38):
ID what you're doing? I'm just like, fuck, I have
to google that. I'm not joking. I googled that one day.
What are people saying to me?

Speaker 3 (24:45):
I had to look up on the at what e NM.

Speaker 4 (24:48):
Means ethical non monogamy.

Speaker 1 (24:50):
I didn't know that you have a DA relationships.

Speaker 3 (24:54):
Every single person has E and M on the thing.
I'm just like, do you just want to fuck and
be in a relationship.

Speaker 5 (25:00):
And you want also does your partner know that you're
in exactly?

Speaker 1 (25:03):
I don't know about the effors.

Speaker 3 (25:06):
Who knows.

Speaker 1 (25:06):
It's a different world now, isn't it.

Speaker 3 (25:08):
Yeah. I had to google that because I was like, oh,
that's nw since I was last single.

Speaker 5 (25:12):
Melissa, speaking of you know, the last time that you
were single, what were some of the considerations you had
being someone who is in the public eye your marriage ending,
What was your thought process of, like how much you
wanted to share about that and how much you wanted
to keep private.

Speaker 3 (25:26):
I wanted to keep as much of it private as possible,
because you know, breakups suck no matter who you are
and how public your life happens to be, and so
when you have to then you know, consciously on couple
or whatever it happens to be, when you have to
separate in public, it sucks. And so I was given
a little bit of advice from people in the industry

(25:46):
about how to do it. Apparently you if you're going
to announce it, move first, yes, so that people don't
follow you to your new place, because I had a
issue with privacy and photographers and yata get it because
I want to know who dating next, so they want
to sit outside your house, which is just so wonderful
as a single woman to.

Speaker 4 (26:04):
Really makes you feel secure, super secure.

Speaker 3 (26:07):
But at least you have proof that you being stalked.

Speaker 1 (26:08):
So there's that still means nothing.

Speaker 3 (26:11):
Yeah, so that, but you announce it apparently, if you
are going to announce it publicly, which I recommend because
you get to say it on your terms. Yeah, you
do it at nine pm on a Sunday night, because
that way you miss all the weekend gossip. The new
cycle starts, the new cycle starts again, and so you'll

(26:31):
get some online pickup, but you won't get the printed press.

Speaker 1 (26:34):
H ridiculous that you have to think of it to that.

Speaker 3 (26:36):
Yeah detail, Yeah, I learned that one from I won't
name him, but yeah, did it work? It did?

Speaker 1 (26:43):
It was good.

Speaker 3 (26:43):
We minimized it as much as possible, and so that
you go. That's how the sausage is made. That's how
the sausage is work. This is really the behind the scenes,
but all jokes aside, because you know, no one wants
to hear about like my problems with privacy, because you
know that's boring. It sucks for everybody. You're going through
this huge transition of the next phase of your life.

(27:04):
You're battling with feelings of unfound mind you feelings of
failure because it's not necessarily about that. You know, relationships end,
they're allowed to end. Friendships can end, they're allowed to
end as well. But you want to be able to
go through that as gently as possible, And to do
that publicly not so nice, but to do it in

(27:24):
general also not so nice.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
So you also mourn the loss of what you imagined,
that this romantic fairy tale that you envisioned for the
rest of your life, and that even if you are
fully connected to the breakup and it's everything that you
wanted as well and it's amicable, it doesn't mean you
don't mourn the things that you had set out to
do with that person and that life you had set
out to create exactly.

Speaker 3 (27:44):
And it's a recalibration of how you live your life now,
you know, like moving house and establishing a whole new
way of doing things, and it's all part of the course,
and I think you need to go gently through that experience.
But yeah, my life now is very different to what
it was before Master Chef happened and before TV happened
at all. And do I need to do things a

(28:06):
little bit differently? Probably, but for who you know, do
you need to do things differently? If it works for
you and it brings you satisfaction out of your life,
then I would probably say.

Speaker 5 (28:16):
No, you don't.

Speaker 3 (28:16):
Like you know, if you're enjoying that and you're.

Speaker 5 (28:18):
Getting satisfaction out of your career and different projects you're
able to work on.

Speaker 3 (28:22):
I mean, I love that, you know. Like for me,
I've been gifted the most diverse, interesting, complex career, and
I love my work. I love all of the bits
and pieces that I get to call work in my life,
like sitting here with you having a really frank and
open conversation delightful, utterly delightful. So I'm not sorry for
making the choices to end up having the kind of

(28:43):
job that allows me to have these wonderful opportunities to
meet people and have interesting, nuanced conversations. But there's a
trade off there. There always has to be, you know,
everything has a price. And so you know, I have
friends with teenage kids now, and which is utterly terrifying.
I do too, Yeah, terrifying. But when all kids go

(29:04):
through that thing of gosh, I wish I was famous,
and I have to have that conversation with them to say,
if you're really good at something and you end up
in that space, that's great. But if you have no
purpose and you just want to be blanket statement famous,
you're going to float around being deeply unhappy because there's
nothing anchoring you to this spotlight and it goes quickly, right,

(29:26):
it comes and it goes really quickly. It's a very
fickle state of being. So if you're not there with
passion and purpose, you will get lost. I mean, the
likelihood is that you will get lost.

Speaker 1 (29:36):
So how did you become famous? How did you find yourself?

Speaker 2 (29:40):
Because it wasn't a linear path on our TV screens
as a master chef.

Speaker 3 (29:44):
Judge, Well, I mean it started with food writing, so
I was a restaurant critic, food journalist, and travel journalist
as well for a number of years.

Speaker 4 (29:51):
You also had experiences in pre production before that didn't.

Speaker 3 (29:55):
Yeah, So I mean when I've had this nonlinear path,
and it's because of had a series of jobs and
each of those jobs has given me a tremendous gift.
So I've worked even from high school. I went to
a media based high school, so we were attached to
SBS and there was a television show that was produced
by the students front of camera, back of camera, teaching

(30:19):
you how to edit all of that. And so I
was preppy to that stuff from the get go, which
was really fun. So I was already aware of, you know,
partially how the sausage is made. It's just some degree.
And then I ended up in advertising. I was a
makeup artist while I was at Uni. I was working
for Clinique and mac can make a cosmetica and stuff

(30:41):
like that. So all of these things, my parents are
like scratching their head, going what is going on?

Speaker 1 (30:45):
When she got going to med school?

Speaker 3 (30:47):
So all good, all good, so fine, But you know,
I found myself in the Red Center filming a TV
show a couple of months ago, and there's no hair
and makeup artist attached to a production like that, no stylist.
If you don't know how to put yourself together, then
they're going to film you as you are. And so
I'm really glad that I know how to you know,
put together an outfit, you know, make myself look presentable

(31:11):
and then go and do the thing. And had I
have not done those earlier jobs in makeup, And you know,
I used to do hair and makeup for like music
videos and ads and things like that if I didn't
have any of that background, I would probably be a
bit more at sea with presentation side of things, being
able to advocate for how I want to look and
how I want to be presented now. If I didn't

(31:32):
have the experience earlier, I wouldn't have the vocabulary or
the courage to be able to speak up for myself now.
So I'm very grateful for that. Yeah. But yeah, So
I was on assignment in Vietnam when I got the
call about Master Chef, and I just arrived and I
was about to get on a boat and sail down

(31:53):
the Mekong Delta to Cambodia, and I was all of
these emails and these mistext miss call and text messages
and things had come through, and I didn't know what
was going on. I was very discomopulated because I'd filled
out my visa wrong. I'd done it in a hurry.

Speaker 1 (32:08):
Can be deported.

Speaker 3 (32:10):
I'd in a hurry typed in my date of birth
instead of nineteen eighty two being one nine to three
nineteen o three zero the years one thousand. I mean,
I know I look good. I'm Asian. Martha Jean's the.

Speaker 4 (32:24):
Camp Jeanie Today you know, thanks, thanks mum.

Speaker 3 (32:27):
No, But so they got me on a technicality and
basically I had to pay a bribe to get in.
So I was dealing with that while my photographer was
already you know, already cleared. Immigration was waiting for me,
and there's a bus waiting for us to go to
the port to get on the boat and all of
the rest of it. So I was stressing about that,
and then there's all of these we'd like to come
and see, and was like, I'm not even in the country.

(32:48):
And so I ended up after that assignment. A couple
of weeks later, I went in to have the meeting
and I had already gone in there with my mind
made up that I would say I'd think about it.
I wasn't going to say yes immediately.

Speaker 1 (33:02):
Why was that? Was that like a make them think
they don't have you yet or was it not?

Speaker 3 (33:06):
Genuinely? It was genuinely from a journalistic point of view,
you know, like it's our job to be skeptical about things.
And so I had seen the former three judges had
gone through that tremendously steep trajectory when it comes from hey,
we're going to do this beautiful show about food, to
their private lives being you know, really put out there,

(33:26):
and a whole lot of things. So I knew there
was the potential that that might happen to me, and
as a private person, as someone who at that point
regarded their anonymity as a journalist as a covetable thing,
I knew that I'd have to be a different kind
of writer if I said yes to this. I knew
I'd have to conduct myself a little bit, you know, differently,

(33:47):
or a bit more consciously. And so I sort of thought,
do I want that? Do I want that? And they,
of course they walked I walked in there, and they
just assumed I would just you know, kiss around that
they were walking on, and you know, to some extent,
you know, obviously tremendous respect for them creating this incredible
show and what an honor to be considered. But I

(34:07):
didn't want to throw myself into a situation without asking
all the questions and thinking about things really really deeply.
So you know, it's given all the information and I went,
thanks very much, I'm gonna I'm gonna have a think
about this. I said, I know what I bring to
the table, and they said, well, what do you mean
by that? I said, well, I look like this as
in Chinese, but I sound white. And that's really palatable

(34:32):
for you because you're a primetime television show on a
major network and you can't scare the horses. And I'm
a female and I'm a female, so I'm checking a
whole bunch of boxes for you, and I can shock,
horror do the job. Was there a part of you that,
in any capacity, even though you know your work and
what you're bringing, that thought, Okay, am I a diversity

(34:54):
higher to them?

Speaker 4 (34:54):
Or do they?

Speaker 3 (34:55):
I thought that? Of course I thought that as well.
Like that's why I said, I know what you get
when you get me.

Speaker 4 (35:01):
I love that you're aware of that before though, because
so many people would see the opportunity and be wowed
by it without having the considerations of this is going
to come with the pressures of having to face misogyny,
having to face racism from the Australian public.

Speaker 3 (35:18):
And from tabloid media as well. We know what, we
know how they love to treat women in in you.

Speaker 1 (35:25):
Know, don't we ever off?

Speaker 3 (35:26):
We love it. It's so great. I mean, it's it's
it's it's a bit of roses. Every day, isn't it.

Speaker 1 (35:31):
It's wonderful. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:32):
I'm always showing someone an ex what they're missing, showing off.

Speaker 3 (35:39):
Showing off. I remember once I cut my hair, like
I used to have quite long hair when I started
my career, and then I cut it off for expedience.
You guys just didn't want to be in the makeup chair.

Speaker 1 (35:46):
For that long.

Speaker 3 (35:47):
To be frank with you, I didn't even check the contract.
I probably should have, but I was literally just shopping
and there was Melissa flaunts her new.

Speaker 1 (35:56):
Est It's the word choice.

Speaker 3 (36:00):
It's just how am I? How am I doing that?

Speaker 1 (36:02):
You're like, you followed me. I'm not fortunate you've followed me.

Speaker 5 (36:07):
They were out in the front of your house waiting
for you to come out and flaun your new house.

Speaker 4 (36:11):
How was it, like, how did you experience that?

Speaker 5 (36:14):
Though?

Speaker 4 (36:14):
You know, did you experience certain levels of misogyny and
racism when you started that job? Absolutely stupid question.

Speaker 3 (36:20):
I mean, honestly, I think on the first prop, because
you have tech rehearsal and you know, all sorts of
different things before you actually start a filming day, right
at the beginning of a production, and I think maybe
it was the first week for sure. It might have
been like the second or third day of filming. One
of the tabloids came out with some rumors about her.
She's she's, you know, been on set for five minutes

(36:42):
and she's already been a diva, And everyone was just
giggling because like, I'd literally just been like offering everybody
in the crew lollies, and I just like, how could
becoming upset? Because I asked for a cruise sheet with
everybody's photos, names, and titles so I could memorize everybody's
now as as quickly as possible behavior because I don't

(37:04):
I don't want to do the whole hi hating, Oh
hey bro, Like I want to know who you are
and what you do in the scheme of the production
because we're probably going to be spending well, we are
going to be spending hundreds of hours together. So yeah,
but the whole you know, she's a diva. I'm like,
I haven't even worn in these shoes yet, and I'm
getting this and it's one of many things. You're either

(37:27):
going to be a diva, you're going to be a slot.
Maybe you're going to.

Speaker 2 (37:31):
Be difficult, whatever is difficult quote unquote on TV yeah,
it's like, it's just what we're branded with.

Speaker 3 (37:36):
But also, God forbid, you should advocate for your own
comfort and your own best interests. God forbid you should
do that, because if you speak up, then yeah, you
get tired and feathered with being difficult. And I like,
I remember Catherine Heigel. You know, there's a very famous
interview that she gives about that, and she just sits
in her own power and says, I will not apologize

(37:57):
for having boundaries. And if if you think I'm difficult
because of that, well then I'm not going to correct
your narrative. But I'm also not going to lower my
boundaries in order to make you feel more comfortable that
we can manipulate me.

Speaker 2 (38:11):
Do you know if there were and you don't have
to answer this, but do you know if there was
any kind of pay disparity between you and.

Speaker 1 (38:17):
We disgust it?

Speaker 3 (38:18):
Yeah, we never discussed it, and I felt that that
was just the best way forward with those kinds of
conversations and money. Money is a tough one. Money is
another stigma conversation that you know, let you guys decide
what you think about that for yourselves, but for me,
you know, being again culturally quite private. These were not
discussions I necessarily wanted to have, And I thought, you

(38:40):
know what, if I'm happy with the money I'm being
offered to do the job, and I'm happy to turn
up to work every day and feel like that's right
for me, then far be it for me to, you know,
discuss it with other people and maybe feel like I'm
missing out on something if I'm not. You know, but
I wasn't the big star walking into that, so you
are now I can only assume I pretty quickly became

(39:02):
the big star. It was a god that was weird,
A weird, sorry, uncomfortable, I know, I do you know.
I still find it super uncomfortable. Yeah, especially when you're
in an ensemble cast, because you're a group, so your
success you rise in your fall together. So that's always
the way that I see it is when you're in
a group scenario in terms of television ensemble work, you

(39:24):
are as good as the worst and best, like you
all contribute something. So I found it very difficult and
still find it really difficult when people go, oh my god,
you're the breakout start. It's like, no, no, I'm part of it.
A wonderful group of people. We worked really well together,
and I'm so grateful for that, But to be singled out,
I struggled with it a little bit. And maybe I'm
getting a little bit better at just owning who I

(39:46):
am and being all right with my contribution, but I
do struggle with that comparative, you know, single, being singled
out as part of a group.

Speaker 5 (39:56):
I found reading your book, this trust between private and
how much you were willing to share really generous. I
think the way that you spoke it was so frank
in some areas, and I just want to put a
little bit of a content warning for anyone listening right now.
We are about to discuss sexual assault, so if that's
something that's a little bit hard for you, it might

(40:16):
be you know, worth your while skipping ahead. But there
was a particular line that really really hit me in
the heart. You'd spoken about coming to terms with the
fact that an experience you had had a couple of
years beforehand was not, in fact sexual assault. It was rape,
and you had labeled it as such, but it had
taken you quite a while to get there, And this

(40:38):
is what you wrote. You said, I felt so ashamed
by choices i'd made that I felt had landed me
in the position to have had that happen to me.
And I think that this is something that every survivor experiences,
you know, everyone thinks about what did I do that
led me to be in that position, and whether that's

(40:58):
a survival mechanism, whether that's too to ensure that you're
trying to protect yourself.

Speaker 4 (41:02):
From happening again.

Speaker 5 (41:03):
Sure, but I think that inevitably when we do do that,
we actually take on some of the ownership. Yeah, when
we have nothing to be accountable for in that scenario, absolutely,
How did you come to terms with that?

Speaker 3 (41:16):
I did the very unhealthy thing of repressing it for
many years. I didn't talk about it. I did that
thing where I was like, Okay, it must have been
my fault. You know that I allowed this set of
circumstances to happen, or I had some I had some
say or some agency over the environment that allowed that
to happen to me. And I was so embarrassed by it.
It was like such an awful thing that I just

(41:38):
I put it in a neat little box. I locked
the box, I stuffed it back and way back in.
You know, the recesses of my heart and my soul,
and I have forgot about it. You know, I really
did a very good job of disassociating from that particular experience,
so much so that I would you know, I would
have conversations with friends who have gone through some really

(41:58):
horrible things, and I would never identify I on that
level with them. I would think, you know, I'm here
for you, I'm an ally, I'm deeply supportive, and I'm
so sorry this happened to you. And it just didn't.
It didn't click up until about two years ago when
I really started writing the book, and I attended a
Murray Claire International Women's Day event and I spoke and

(42:19):
I thought, oh, this will just be an easy lunch,
you know, what an honor to speak about my career
in front of this tremendous group of women who have
all done and achieved some incredible things. And Tania Plippisek
and her daughter Annie Kootz Trotter, who is the co
creator of or the co founder of Survivor Hub, spoke
about Anna's experience in her teen years and it broke

(42:41):
the dam. It broke the dam, and everything came bubbling
up to the surface, and I just I felt the
inability to hold it back anymore, and I had to
face it. I really had to face it. And I
was never planning on writing about it. I thought, well,
a memoir is a collection of your memories. They don't
have to be every memory you've had. I mean, otherwise,

(43:01):
you know that'd be a much longer book. But I
wasn't planning on writing about this particular thing, was sharing
that particular revelation. But I reached a point through therapy
and through processing this where it's not my shame. I
didn't do this to myself. I didn't ask for it
and want it. I made it clear and happened, and

(43:26):
it's not my shame to bear. So I don't want
to hold onto that, and I don't want it to
impact the choices that I make.

Speaker 1 (43:34):
I don't even want to.

Speaker 2 (43:35):
I hate that I was about to say this, that's like,
it's really brave of you to talk about it. But
it shouldn't be brave. But this is the problem, right,
It's that the shame that we feel as women, and
the two feelings that come regarding sexual assault and rape
from every woman that speaks about it is embarrassment and shame. Yeah,
they're embarrassed it happened. And this is not just necessarily

(43:55):
like the shame comes from society. Yea of society telling
us that it's our fault.

Speaker 3 (44:02):
Yeah, this is why.

Speaker 1 (44:03):
So it's this innate feeling.

Speaker 3 (44:05):
What did she wear? You know? Why did she put
herself in that?

Speaker 1 (44:08):
Why were you drinking?

Speaker 3 (44:09):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (44:10):
Why did you go back to the apartment if you
didn't think that that was going to happen?

Speaker 3 (44:13):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (44:13):
No, that's this is where it stems from.

Speaker 2 (44:15):
It stems from society telling us it's consistently our fault
and always protecting the perpetrator.

Speaker 3 (44:21):
Yeap, and perpetrators benefit from that cloud of embarrassment and
it's a muddy space, and so they really take advantage
of the ambiguity of certain of certain things. I mean,
when trauma happens to you, you disassociate. The brain is
really good at protecting us, and so I have big

(44:44):
chunks of memory loss in that particular period of my
life because that's what brains do. They just segment off
things that happen to you so that you don't have
to feel them. And that helps us survive, but it
doesn't help us heal necessarily.

Speaker 4 (44:59):
Was it hard for you to open that can of
worms within yourself.

Speaker 3 (45:01):
Oh yeah, absolutely, you know, having that conversation with my therapist,
and i'd started seeing her just before well, when I
signed onto Master Chef, I said, I want you to
know me before the job, before you're a diva. The
job might change me, so you can you know, you
can tell me I'm being a diva or I'm being difficult.

Speaker 4 (45:20):
I believe you not the Daily Mail.

Speaker 3 (45:23):
Yeah, so you know, Corn Michelle, she knows, she knows
all of it. But I wanted to have her know
my baseline before the job stuff took over, and so
I worked. So I worked extensively with her to kind
of just step myself through that whole, you know, process
of why the brain does what it does to protect
us and how I need to process it in order

(45:44):
to let it go. But I'm fucking tired of holding
onto the embarrassment and the shame that is not mine
to bear. And we need to have these conversations. And
there's a lot that's going on in terms of conversations
about what's going on in hospitality. And I'm aware that
the dark side of hospitality they great headline for newspapers

(46:05):
these days, but it happens in every single industry. But
the amount of people that I know, in particular women
who know who these people are and have just never
spoken of about it, and they continue to be friends
because it gives them, you know, the advantage of power
or whatever it happens to be. It sickens me.

Speaker 1 (46:25):
Do you know the person?

Speaker 3 (46:27):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is somebody that I knew, and
you know, obviously, the way that I've written the book,
I don't name I don't name him, and I won't
name him because that just becomes a whole other thing.
And he doesn't get to have his profile raised because
of an association with me, so he can go fuck himself.

Speaker 4 (46:49):
Completely agree.

Speaker 5 (46:50):
There was another line in your book that I absolutely
love for a very very different reason. You actually compared
happiness to a handbag.

Speaker 3 (46:58):
You wrote in the City moment.

Speaker 4 (47:01):
I believe in happiness and in feeling good, but I'm
realizing that happiness might be far too fleeting a concept
to hang your hat on. Maybe instead, contentment is a
more sustainable thing to strive for long term. I cannot
tell you how deeply I resonated with this, because in
the last couple of years for myself and I don't
want to make this about myself. But I have really

(47:23):
realized that.

Speaker 5 (47:24):
Happiness is a feeling that really comes and goes for me,
and it's not reliable, and it's not something that I
should be changing certain aspects of my life based upon.

Speaker 3 (47:32):
Yeah, if we chase happiness like pure happiness, you're setting
yourself up for a life of disappointment because it is
a moment in time. It comes and it goes, and
I think it's best enjoyed when you can be present
with it and enjoy, you know, feeling it aarrve, observing
it and then watching it go and knowing that it'll
come around again. But you can't chase it. You just

(47:54):
have you have to be the thing that sits still
in the center of your world and you watch it
come and you watch you go, and you celebrate it
while it's in your life. But if you keep chasing it,
then you change your whole world just for the happiness.
It's just you're going to chase it tail it's never
going to be good. But contentment is achievable, you know,
chrissetting your life up so that you are content, you know,

(48:15):
more or less every day, you know, like bad things
happen to us all of the time, and that's horrible,
but that's life. You know. Life doesn't guarantee us as
sweet right the entire time. But there are things we
can do to feather our nests and make this life
a little bit nicer for ourselves. But that's very different
to happiness. And I think understanding the distinction between contentment

(48:36):
and happiness was a big game changer for me in
my thirties.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
Most people, I think now realize too, that the bar
moves for happiness. So you say, I just know when
I get this amount of money, I'll be happy, and
you're not. I know when I'm in a relationship, I'm
just going to be happy. You get to the relationship
and you're not. You realize the barkeeps moving, And I
think that circles back to why that can't be at
the forefront of what you want out of life.

Speaker 4 (48:58):
I forgot to ask you how the handbag came into it?

Speaker 3 (49:01):
Oh, yeah, how the handbag came Oh? Because I was
talking about it bags and so you know, an it
bag being you know, the happiness, it's like you're going
to get that instant hit and it's going to be lovely,
but it's going to go away. The bag will still
be a bag and you can use it, but you
won't be as excited about it. But like an investment bag.

Speaker 1 (49:18):
You can buy great fakes too.

Speaker 3 (49:20):
They make it. It's a fleeting it's a fleeting experience.
But like investment, things that are going to be with
you for life, that are well made and going to
hold your things a life that to me equates to,
you know, the idea of contentment. And so yeah, and
I love handbags, so why not talking about fashion?

Speaker 1 (49:41):
I do want to know just for myself. You are
like working and have hosted and you're doing interviews with
the UFC. Yeah, which is like Ultimate Fighting?

Speaker 3 (49:49):
What the box? Like? What is that?

Speaker 1 (49:51):
You don't scream? UFC?

Speaker 3 (49:53):
Oh? I love MMA love it. I do jiu jitsu,
And the big question it's like vegan and it's like,
how do you know someone does digitsu?

Speaker 1 (50:01):
They'll tell you, you know, I started jujitsu purely for that.
I was single.

Speaker 3 (50:10):
Roll around on the floor with boys, you wrap your legs,
you have each other's genitals on your face, what better
way to nice to meet you? And suddenly you're inside
somebody's arm pit like it.

Speaker 1 (50:20):
Is and suddenly you're having sex. It's weird, and it's
that real naked chocol.

Speaker 3 (50:24):
It's very it's very close quarters. But it's been great
for my anxiety to do because you kind of need
to just be very present with it and you're learning
it's a human chest because it's like a action reaction
kind of sports. So someone tries to submit you or
tries a particular move on you and your choice. You
have choices over how you want to counteract that, and
it's whoever is the best at doing that that wins.

(50:46):
And to me, that's like tremendously satisfying for my brain
to try and unwrap that puzzle, unpack that puzzle. But yeah,
I love UFC. So I started watching UFC during the pandemic.
You know, for some people, Bay I.

Speaker 1 (51:01):
Watched martiall Art Mixed Martial Arts.

Speaker 3 (51:03):
I found it so exciting and compelling. And for me,
it's always about the human stories. So how people find
the passion, the purpose and the skill to be truly
fearless to step into a cage, have the door shut
and it's just you and one other person. Where does
that happen in life? But gladiatorial sports have been around
since humans have been human, you know, wrestling and boxing

(51:24):
were part of the very first Olympics way back when.
So martial arts have been part of human culture since
humans are human. And for me, what does it take
to be that fearless is a big question that I
want to ask myself and I want to ask other
people as well. And so in that particular scenario, when
I was given the opportunity to start doing some work
in that space, like you bet, I'm asking, you know,

(51:48):
these incredible athletes how they got to do what they do.
And once you start to get to know people within
the industry, the reasons for being and the reasons forgetting
to where they are sometimes truly heartbreaking and truly amazing,
very moving. And so for me, that's the part that
I love the most is I'm not there for the
technical expertise. You know, I'm starting to learn and that's

(52:09):
why I started jiu jitsu. But for me, it's about
it's a hell of a spectator sport and that the
numbers don't lie because it's it's billions of dollars and
for a sport that you know, the UFC has been
around for just over thirty years, and what they've built
in that particular time is extraordinary. Yes, it is hard
to watch, but when you start to understand the techniques
of you know, all the different sports that it encompasses,

(52:32):
from kickboxing to muy Thai to jiu jitsu to wrestling,
you start seeing the shapes and the techniques and the strategy,
and that's what I'm looking at. They're incredible, yeah, incredible,
some of the best athletes in the world in terms
of cardio and strength and all of the rest of it.
And then it's also a show as well. People, it's

(52:52):
a spectacle. It's one of the greatest shows on earth,
and so for me to be a part of that
is great. But it was a deliberate choice to go
from just doing Master Chef to doing something like that
because I want people to understand. This is my line
in the sand, to say, don't underestimate me and what
I can do.

Speaker 1 (53:09):
I will choke hold you.

Speaker 3 (53:10):
Yeah, I'll renaked choke you like.

Speaker 1 (53:13):
I'll get that a go.

Speaker 3 (53:14):
But it's about we should never underestimate each other in
terms of the different facets that make you you Like
people will know you for two or three things, you're
a million different things. We all are, and so to
make sure that we always give people the benefit of
a doubt that they are more than what they show.

(53:35):
I think we you know, I think that's a good
way to see each other navigate each other in life.

Speaker 1 (53:40):
I agree.

Speaker 5 (53:41):
I think that the most beautiful thing that you are
is a writer. And I enjoyed your books so much.
I enjoyed how honest it was. And like you said before,
it's definitely not just field of dark stories. It's actually
intertwined with so many different things where these stories come
out from your life through different experiences.

Speaker 1 (54:01):
There's a bit of food in there, like there is
a say on food.

Speaker 3 (54:04):
Every chapter starts with an essay on food. That's a
metaphor for that chapter.

Speaker 1 (54:08):
What's the Dino nugget metaphor?

Speaker 3 (54:10):
Well make it into it, you know, like it's life
is what you make of it, you know, like shit,
you can you can shape your world if.

Speaker 1 (54:16):
I can't be made extinct, can I?

Speaker 3 (54:19):
I mean it's about aging and women. Like the metaphor
for the Master Chef chapter is it starts with food poisoning.
Do the masks? Like you know, there are layers there
and it's un and it was a really fun thing
to write. So you know, I've definitely gotten the bug.
Now I'm just like this, Well, there's a fiction idea

(54:40):
that's exciting. Go. I believe if you put it out
there in the universe.

Speaker 1 (54:44):
Then hey, life on cards the place to put it out.
Put it out there.

Speaker 3 (54:47):
Yeah, okay, so find me your husband. Okay, we'll talk
about publishing fiction in twenty twenty.

Speaker 2 (54:56):
You're a wonderful Thank you for so much for coming
and talking to us today. You are so much ticulate,
you write so beautifully, and your stories are truly something
that would relate to so many people. So thank you
for being so generous with your time, and thank you
for having me