MasterChef’s Andy Allen delivers a moving message from Jock Zonfrillo’s family
Andy Allen appeared on The Sunday Project’s touching tribute to Jock Zonfrillo and revealed that he had been in touch with Lauren, the late chef’s wife, and his family.
Allen, 35, told host Sarah Harris that he cooked them a meal last week and they were overwhelmed by the outpouring of love for the beloved chef who passed away on May 1 at the age of 46.
“They hurt, but they do help,” Allen admitted in an emotionally charged interview that aired before the season premiere of MasterChef Australia.
“They are overwhelmed by how much support there has been for him and the family…
“They just wanted me to say they feel it. It is heavy. But they feel it,’ he continued.
Andy Allen appeared on The Sunday Project’s touching tribute to Jock Zonfrillo and revealed he had been in touch with Lauren, the late chef’s wife, and his family
Allen, 35, told host Sarah Harris that he cooked them a meal and they were overwhelmed by the outpouring of love for the beloved chef who passed away on May 1 at the age of 46. Pictured: Jock and his wife Lauren
When asked about Lauren’s well-being, Allen was candid.
“She’s the strongest woman I’ve ever known, but… she’s lost her best friend,” he said.
Zonfrillo and his family had recently moved to Rome, while the MasterChef judge flew solo back to Melbourne for the show’s premiere.
Elsewhere during the interview, Andy revealed that Zonfrillo was eager to return to Rome and start a new life with his family.
“They just wanted me to say they feel it. It is heavy. But they feel it,’ he continued.
Andy went on to confess that part of him felt guilty for not being there with Zonfrillo during his final moments.
When asked what he would miss most about Zonfrillo, Allen said, “Everything. I probably spend more time – in the six months we’re filming – with him than I do with my wife.
“I’m going to miss everything this man brought to my life… He couldn’t wait for Alex and I to have kids too. He always said I would make a great dad. And I wish he was there to see that.’
Andy confessed that a part of him felt guilty about not being there with Zonfrillo during his final moments. Together on the photo on November 1, 2022
Zonfrillo’s long hours in the kitchen and his battle with addiction took a huge toll on his personal life, leaving him with two failed marriages and “a deep distrust of most people.”
But his pain and anguish evaporated on October 21, 2014, when he first met Lauren Fried in the bar of a waterfront hotel in Adelaide.
Zonfrillo, who died on Sunday at the age of 46, later described their meeting as “love at first sight.”
“I didn’t believe in the concept until it happened, but I couldn’t deny it,” he wrote in his memoir Last Shot.
The pair would later wed on New Year’s Day in 2017 and had children together Alfie, six, and Isla, two. He said his family made him feel like he had won a “gold medal.”
But just eight months before meeting his future wife — whom he affectionately named Loz — Zonfrillo delivered a grim assessment of how his career as a chef had affected his personal relationships.
Zonfrillo, who died suddenly in Melbourne on Sunday, once said it was “love at first sight” when he met his wife Lauren Fried for their first date on Oct. 21, 2014. (They are pictured with their children Alfie and Isla)
Fried, a panelist on the ABC series Gruen, initially contacted the twice-divorced MasterChef judge on Twitter, Zonfrillo recounted in his 2021 memoir Last Shot
“Two divorces, a handful of friends because you don’t have time to spend with them, so that’s why you can count your close friends on one hand, and a deep mistrust of most people,” he told the Adelaide advertiser.
‘That’s what you’re left with at the end of the day. Is it really that glamorous? I do not think so.’
He admitted that he had made mistakes in previous relationships and realized that he had been a “s*** partner to women.”
“Shortly before I met Loz, after a series of disastrous short-term relationships in Adelaide, after which I realized I was actually a pretty bad partner for women, I would finally put myself in therapy to try and fix myself,” he wrote.
He added, “I found myself spilling my guts and just telling her everything I didn’t want her to find out later: the drugs, the failed marriages, my daughters Ava and Sofia, from previous marriages.”
She had just returned from a European vacation trying to get over a bad relationship when a mutual friend reached out and said the Scottish-born chef was ‘her kind of guy’