‘Black sheep’: MasterChef star Leong exposes dark truth

Former MasterChef judge Melissa Leong might appear to have it all – the skills, fame and talent – but underneath it all, the star claims it’s a very different story.

Melissa Leong says she is the black sheep of her family.

One of the most famous names on television, the Dessert Masters judge grew up in a Singaporean Chinese Australian household.

“I’m not an accountant, but my brother is a doctor, so that’s taken all the pressure off me, so I can now feel free to just be the black sheep and love it,” Leong said.

Melissa Leong, of Dessert Masters, on the season two premiere of Mental As Anyone podcast with Jonathon 'J.Mo' Moran. Photo: Ashley Mar

“I’m not a lawyer; I am not a doctor; I am not married anymore. I defy a lot of the conventions that my culture would want me to have.

“I’ve chosen to be child free. These are all little landmarks that people would have expected me to have at this point, but I wake up every day and I am so grateful for the life that I have. “I’m exactly where I’m meant to be, and it’s nice to feel that, because I think we feel lost in life.”

Leong, 42, made the comments in the season two premiere episode of the Mental As Anyone podcast, revealing she has lived with anxiety and depression her entire life and that she has been told in the past that people find her intimidating.

“I am aware that sometimes, by being a little verbose, being a little wordy, word nerdy, that it can intimidate people, that looking put together makes other people feel like they’re less put together and that is never the intention,” Leong said.

“I think sometimes when we meet someone who we find a little intimidating, we need to sometimes break that down and go, well, what is it about this person that’s holding a mirror up to myself and that I feel less than adequate in front of them and kind of work on the critical thinking about that, and suddenly you see them as being maybe a little bit more human and being a little kinder to yourself and hopefully you meet somewhere in the middle.”

Leong was a respected food critic, writer and radio host before rising to national fame as a judge on Channel 10 juggernaut MasterChef.

Melissa Leong and Amaury Guichon on set of Dessert Masters.

It has at times been a bumpy ride as the self-described introvert attempted to navigate a world of being recognised when out with friends or picking up groceries at the supermarket.

“Anxiety and depression for me goes hand-in-hand,” she explained.

“It’s a lovely swings and roundabout situation, where, inevitably, if I’m fine with one, then I’m experiencing the other, and there’s a moment of bliss in between when neither of them are touching me. In my life, for as long as I can remember, I have dealt with those two really big themes. And as a child, growing up in a migrant family in Asian culture, mental health is or was not at the time really recognised. It’s just you were referred to as being difficult or a difficult child, you were being petulant, or you were being moody, or something like that. Obviously, as a child, you lack the language to articulate what it is that you are feeling.”

She continued: “I think that is why I ended up in the world of words. I’ve really worked hard to make myself understood on any platform that I can muster, and being able to be clear about who I am, how I feel, what I want, how I want to help people, how I want to connect with people, to be able to do that means the world to me. So I think very early on, I really tried to find the words to explain these, this like maelstrom of feelings going on. I think the misconception about anxiety is that if you’re an anxious person you wouldn’t be doing a job that’s so public, or you wouldn’t be able to moderate a Q&A with Jamie Oliver to a sold out Opera House or something like that. It is just not true. A lot of us grapple (with it) and we hold down any number of different kinds of high functioning jobs … it is just a part of who we are.”

Social media, creating boundaries around it, is a huge thing for Leong.

She learnt early on never to read comments, which she often restricts, not to censor but to protect herself.

“I know a lot of people, especially on social media, have found quite difficult when it comes to me, is my boundaries,” she said.

Dessert Masters judge Melissa Leong.

“So before I started MasterChef, I turned my comments off. People take that a number of different ways. Some people take it as an insult that I don’t want to engage with people, and that’s completely incorrect. I care about what people will think, but for me, the vast influx of information coming at me, questions, comments, feedback, I can’t take all of it on again. As an introvert, it’s too much for me, so I feel like it’s safer for my own mental health to respectfully draw the line and say, ‘look, I do care what you think, and I do interact sometimes’ but for me, if I were to wake up and check my phone and have a whole bunch of comments on … what I’m wearing, how I pronounce something, recommendations on restaurants to take their date to, all of that, for me, it’s tantamount to anxiety. And for me, as someone who has dealt with anxiety and depression for their entire life, that’s where I need to draw the line for myself in order to make this all sustainable.”

Experimenting with fashion too, she explained on the Mental As Anyone podcast, is a way of protecting herself.

“The style thing came from needing to put on a coat of armour that makes me feel like I can do the thing.

Dessert Masters judge Melissa Leong on the season two premiere of Mental As Anyone podcast with Jonathon 'J.Mo' Moran. Photo: Ashley Mar

“I think of style as a way of expressing yourself without ever having to say a word and I think that’s really powerful. On top of that, I feel like I can put things on that make me walk a little taller, that make me feel a little stronger, a little bolder, and it’s an element of my personality that I can then tap into to do the job. And when you’re standing top of the room in the MasterChef studio, and you’re deciding the fate of someone’s competition career outcome, you need to be in command, you need to be credible. You need to feel like you are a trusted source of power and information and influence for them. Part of how I do that, apart from obviously, taking my job incredibly seriously and doing the research and knowing what I know and taking care with that, it is about how I present myself, and then on top of that, it’s how I can then relate, communicate and connect with people.”

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* Dessert Masters airs Mondays at 7.30pm on 10 and 10 Play. A new episode of Mental As Anyone is released each Tuesday.