The BBC has announced John Torode will no longer host MasterChef, but it has been reported that ITV will continue to air the celebrity chef’s cooking show with his wife Lisa Faulkner.
The Australian-born TV chef, 59, was sacked from MasterChef this week, hotly on the heels of his co-presenter Gregg Wallace’s own sacking after a seven-month investigation.
While the Silkens review upheld 45 allegations of inappropriate behaviour against Wallace, it also included an accusation that Torode had used racist language.
The BBC and MasterChef production company Banijay UK have since confirmed that his contract with the cooking series will not be renewed.
In response to the news, Torode took to his own social media to reveal he was not informed about the sacking before the news was announced.
He added that he will continue to watch the show fondly ‘from afar’ and added that sometimes ‘personal happiness’ lies elsewhere.
John Torode’s statement in full
Although I haven’t heard from anyone at the BBC or Banijay, I am seeing and reading that I’ve been “sacked” from MasterChef and I repeat that I have no recollection of what I’m accused of.
The enquiry could not even state the date or year of when I am meant to have said something wrong.
I’d hoped that I’d have some say in my exit from a show I’ve worked on since its relaunch in 2005, but events in last few days seem to have prevented that. Over the past few months, I have been considering my life and the shape of it now and in the future.
Celebrity MasterChef, which I recently filmed with Grace Dent along with two fantastic Christmas specials will be my last. Personally, I have loved every minute working on MasterChef, but it’s time to pass the cutlery to someone else. For whoever takes over, love it as I have.
I will watch fondly from afar as I now focus on the many other exciting projects that I have been working towards. My tummy will be grateful for a rest after 20 years of eating, but what a joy it has been. Life is everchanging and ever moving & sometimes personal happiness and fulfilment lay elsewhere.
Thank you for the many years of MasterChef.
Yet Torode won’t be vanishing from TV screens, since ITV are reportedly not making any changes to their schedule.
John and Lisa’s Weekend Kitchen – which is in its tenth season – is set to air on Saturday as per usual, The Mirror reported.
John Torode co-hosts the show with his wife and former soap star Faulkner, 53, after the pair first became friends when she appeared on Celebrity MasterChef.
Who is Lisa Faulkner?
Faulkner’s Instagram bio identifies her raison d’être as ‘cooking, acting, Mama’, hinting at how she’s something of a jack-of-all-trades, having worked as an actor, cooking writer and TV presenter.
Prior to her cooking triumph on the Beeb, the 53-year-old was best known for her role in Holby City, but she has also starred in Spooks, Death in Paradise and EastEnders.
Since Celebrity MasterChef, she’s presented Real Food Family Cook Off with Matt Dawson and What’s Cooking? with Ben Shephard, as well as publishing the cookbooks The Way I Cook and Tea and Cake.
How long has Lisa Faulkner been married to John Torode?
Faulkner and Torode tied the knot in 2019, in a star-studded ceremony at the lavish 17th-century estate Aynhoe Park. The guest list included Amanda Holden and Tamzin Outhwaite, as well as Gregg Wallace and his wife Anne-Marie.
The pair first met on This Morning (although Torode has said he doesn’t remember it) but became friends when Faulkner went on Celebrity MasterChef in 2010 and won the series, going on to carve out a career in the cooking industry.
While she got to know Torode through the BBC show, both were married to other partners at the time and have maintained that their initial relationship was entirely platonic.
Last year, she told the Daily Mail: ‘He was a judge on a show I loved and I was petrified of him.
‘He was brilliant and gave us all tips so you didn’t want to let him down. All I could think was, “That sauce hasn’t worked”.’
Yet just a year later in 2011 both their marriages, Faulkner’s to EastEnders actor Chris Coghill and Torode’s to his previous wife Jessica Thomas, had come to an end.
Torode reached out to Faulkner via a romantic handwritten letter to ask her on a date.
‘Neither of us thought of it as anything else until… I don’t know how things change, but something does,’ Faulkner said.
‘He asked me on a date. We went out for dinner. Then it was slightly different.
‘I’m really, really happy. John and I are having such a nice time but we’re taking things slowly. There are lots of other people to consider.’
Who was he married to before?
Torode previously married Jessica Thomas in 2000 and they share a son, Jonah, and a daughter, Lou. While they split in 2011, their divorce wasn’t finalised until 2014.
Do they have any children?
Torode has four children: two with Thomas and two now-adult sons, Casper and Marselle, from a previous relationship.
He does not share any children with Faulkner, but she has an adoptive daughter Billie with her previous husband Chris Coghill.
The former couple adopted her in 2006 when she was 17 months old.
Faulkner has previously spoken about the ‘very dark time’ they went through while undergoing rounds of failed IVF and also suffering an ectopic pregnancy.
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