Gold Logie nominee Poh Ling Yeow on fame: ‘It is a treacherous path’

Gold Logie nominee Poh Ling Yeow has revealed she still feels like an ‘alien’ despite her success, calling fame a ‘treacherous path’.

Navigating life in the spotlight can be a tricky beast for Gold Logie nominee Poh Ling Yeow.

“It is a treacherous path actually, because I think you have to be very careful about what you say yes to,” the former MasterChef contestant-turned-judge said on the Mental As Anyone podcast.

“I think you’re as defined by what you’re saying no to, so opportunities will come, but a lot of them are yucky and will leave a little trail of badness.

“I’ve made mistakes. I’ve said yes to things before and then later regretted it.

“I have done things before where I’ve ... had a weird feeling about that and now I feel like it was a mistake, not huge ones, but just like, probably not as aligned with my brand as it should have been.”

Gold Logie nominee Poh Ling Yeow launches season four of the Mental As Anyone podcast with J.Mo. Picture: Christian Gilles

Yeow, 51, is one of seven top names nominated for gold at Sunday’s Logies, up against Julia Morris, Ally Langdon, Sonia Kruger, Lisa Millar, Lynne McGranger and Hamish Blake.

She is not active on any social media platform other than Instagram, although she does have Facebook for automated posts.

“I have to really watch that space and make sure that I guard it and that when people look at that grid, they know who I am, not just what I sell. You have to be able to sleep at night.”

So what does she say no to?

“It is mainly commercial opportunities that are about money and using my platform,” she explained.

“I really make sure that the things that I attach myself to, like endorsements and stuff, are things that I really genuinely love.

“It is sort of very nuanced but I am very particular.”

The 2025 Gold Logie Nominees (l to r): Poh Ling Yeow, Ally Langdon, Julia Morris, Hamish Blake, Sonia Kruger and Lisa Millar. Picture: Richard Dobson

Yeow this week launched season four of the Mental As Anyone podcast, speaking about everything from work in the public eye to growing up as a migrant child.

She is based in the quieter Adelaide when not shooting MasterChef in Melbourne, and while excited about the Logie Awards on Sunday night, finds the attention unnerving.

“I’ve just always been a little bit of a ... like I’m on the fringe, my whole life,” she said.

“So with this being such an overt sort of acknowledgment of my existence and my work and everything, I don’t know how to receive it because I’m not used to it. I’m used to being ignored.

“Even though it’s such a high, like accolade of people basically accepting me, I just still find it really hard to absorb that.”

Yeow, 3, in Malaysia before her family moved to Australia.

Yeow and fellow MasterChef contestant Julie Goodwin.

Yeow doesn’t live for the spotlight either. She’s an accomplished artist and creative who knows what it is like to not have much.

“What’s good is I’ve known how to live off the sniff of an oily rag forever, being an artist, so it doesn’t scare me to have to be really frugal,” she said.

“I’ve never stressed out about it (money) ... and I don’t need heaps. I’m just really happy with being able to pay the bills.

“I’m not someone that is extravagant at all.”

Yeow was born in Malaysia, her family moving to Australia when she was a child.

Growing up, and even today, Yeow said she felt different to others but was “never bullied”.

Yeow records a Mental As Anyone episode with journalist Jonathon ‘J.Mo’ Moran. Picture: Christian Gilles

“I still feel like an alien,” she said.

“I think it’s a protective mechanism from when I was a kid and I felt it even when I was in Malaysia.

“So it’s funny cause I shouldn’t probably bring it up about being a migrant, but I think it added another element to it because I looked literally different to everyone, but in Malaysia, I looked the same as everyone and I still felt weird because I had some kind of learning difficulty at school. I don’t know what it was but I overcame it when I came to Australia and it was all good and then became a physical thing, I felt really different.”

She continued: “It was nothing to do with any external forces, it was a complete ... just a self sort of inflicted thing and it’s funny, I get transported back there, especially when I’m in a crowd.”

A new episode of Mental As Anyone is released each Tuesday.

Originally published as Gold Logie nominee Poh Ling Yeow on fame: ‘It is a treacherous path’