Inside colourful life of MasterChef Australia host Jock Zonfrillo – from battles with heroin to losing virginity at 12
CELEB chef Jock Zonfrillo once compared his life to the 1990s film Trainspotting and was open about the demons he had faced.
The MasterChef Australia host, 46, died tragically on Sunday after police were called to a hotel in Melbourne.
Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Jock’s life was famously colourful, and he spoke openly about his previous battles with heroin addiction and turning his life around.
Friends and colleagues from the culinary world including Gordon Ramsay and Nigella Lawson have paid tribute to the celebrity shock following news of his shocking death.
Jock’s last Instagram post about the new season of MasterChef Australia starring Jamie Oliver was shared just hours before he was found dead by police at a hotel in the Carlton area of Melbourne.
He is survived by his wife Lauren Fried, whom he met on Twitter, and their four children.
Jock’s last name came from his father’s roots in Scauri, Italy, which helped influence his love of food.
His entry into the restaurant trade, he said, happened purely by chance.
Before his 13th birthday, he and his family were on holiday in the former Yugoslavia when, according to Jock, he lost his virginity to a “much older French woman”.
Writing about the experience in his memoir, Last Shot, Jock said: “I was 12, she was French and much older. It was very wrong, now that I think back.”
But Jock returned to Scotland infused with a love for the street food he encountered in southern Europe.
After looking for a job so he could buy a bike, he started working in the one place that would hire him: a local restaurant.
From then on, he said, he knew he wanted to be a chef.
But just a year later, still in his early teens, he got a glimpse into the darker side of the industry when, as he put it, he was offered cocaine by his colleagues.
Soon, he was partying in Glasgow most weekends, at a time in the late 1980s when the city was, in his words, “absolutely awash” with drugs.
Jock and his friends started with buying weed, before splitting ecstasy pills that could be bought for just £25.
Soon afterwards, however, he tried heroin for the first time, and felt a high “unlike anything he’d ever had before”.
Jock claimed he would shoot up at least twice a day, and that withdrawal left him with “shakes, muscle pain and nausea”.
Jock was normal, he was healthy and he was living a good life
Colin Fassnidge
However, despite his drug problems, his career was going from strength to strength, and in 1994 he got a job working for top chef Marco Pierre White.
At one stage, he became homeless after falling behind on payments to his heroin dealers and started sleeping at work.
Jock claimed that when he came clean about his struggles with his boss, Marco was able to find him a hostel to stay in and even gave him money to survive.
However, following the release of the memoir, Marco came out and disputed Jock’s claims, saying that the two actually spoke very little and that he only worked in his kitchen for a short time.
Jock moved to Australia in 2000 after successfully kicking his heroin habit, saying he injected for the final time just before boarding his flight.
In 2002, Jock faced legal action after setting fire to a kitchen apprentice in what he insisted was a “practical joke gone wrong”.
The teenager, Martin Krammer, suffered extensive burns and was unable to work for more than three months.
He later sued Jock for $75,000 Australian (£40k), although Jock declared bankruptcy and, according to Krammer, he was “never paid a cent”.
Over 20 years, Jock built up a formidable reputation as a top chef, launching Orana, his first restaurant, in the city of Adelaide in 2013.
In 2019, he joined MasterChef Australia as a judge alongside Melissa Leong and Andy Allen.
The following year, Orana was forced to shut down with millions of dollars in debt, despite being named Australia’s best restaurant in 2018’s Good Food Guide.
Friends say he was positive about the latest series of MasterChef and excited about working alongside his friend Jamie Oliver.
Fellow celeb chef and pal Colin Fassnidge said Jock was “on top of the world” during their final conversation.
Colin, who appeared on My Kitchen Rules and Kitchen Nightmares, knew Jock for 20 years.
He told Daily Mail Australia: “It’s so shocking.”
Colin added that when they last spoke six months ago, Jock “was flying, he was doing a great job, he had a great show, he was on top of the world.
“Jock was normal, he was healthy and he was living a good life. I just feel so sorry for his other half.”
The chef’s family put out a statement on his Instagram and Facebook following the tragic news.
They wrote: “With completely shattered hearts and without knowing how we can possibly move through life without him, we are devastated to share that Jock passed away yesterday.”
The statement went on: “For those who crossed his path, became his mate, or were lucky enough to be his family, keep this proud Scot in your hearts when you have your next whisky.”
Victoria Police say they found Jock’s body just after 2am on Monday morning after being called to a hotel on Lygon Street for a welfare check.
No information has been given about the cause of death, but authorities aren’t treating it as suspicious at this time.
A report is due to be prepared for the coroner.