The famous Masterchef Australia judging panel will not be for their next season. Network10 announced that the latest season’s finale will be the last episode for the trio — Matt Preston, Gary Mehigan and George Calombaris.
According to reports, the announcement has come after the revelation about Calombaris’ companies underpaying their staff by $8 million. However, no link between the trio discontinuing their Masterchef journey and the controversy has been mentioned.
According to the network’s chief executive officer Paul Anderson said that the judges and the network were not able to reach a satisfactory commercial agreement. He also added,
We would like to thank Gary, George and Matt for their contribution over the past 11 years. We can’t wait to introduce another group – and the next generation of exceptional judges – in season 12 of MasterChef Australia next year.
Reportedly, unions recently asked for George Calombaris to be sacked from the show after the revelation that his companies had been underpaying the staff. The West Australian government has also removed Calombaris from its tourism campaigns.
Tourism WA’s managing director, Brodie Carr, said,
We’ve paused all of our work with George for now and we’re talking to his management about recouping some of our costs that we’ve paid him. We’ll continue with the campaign that we’re doing with MasterChef but probably not with George.
There has been no news about who will replace the trio.