MasterChef’s Poh Ling Yeow reveals dating app experience: ‘I got one hello’

She is one of the most recognisable stars of MasterChef but Poh Ling Yeow faced a ‘terrifying’ experience dating online – and she reveals why she won’t do it again.

A fusion of difficult experiences, including two broken marriages and the loss of her beloved mother, could have left Poh Ling Yeow with a sour taste for her future.

Instead, the popular presenter and culinary star has added a dash of sageness to her years, making her life now a dish best served old.

“I read somewhere once that the closer you get to death, the more alive you become, and I think it’s so true when you hit middle age,” she reflects to Stellar.

“I have been through quite a bit of grief in the past year, and that adds to the wisdom.

“I love being 50 because it’s taken me this long to actually like myself. It’s tedious to confess, but a classic scourge of being a woman. I think it’s how people become more eccentric as they get older. You have to care less because there is no time to waste obsessing over silly things.”

‘I love being 50!’ Poh Ling Yeow. Picture: Supplied

With that growing sense of ease in her own skin, Yeow has dipped her toe back into the singles scene after separating from her second husband, Jonathan “Jono” Bennett, in 2021 after 12 years together.

“I tried [celebrity dating app] Raya for about six months and I got one hello,” she says with a self-deprecating laugh.

“I was on Tinder for a day – let’s call it an excursion – and it terrified me.”

Still, the chef from South Australia remains optimistic about finding love again, bolstered by her enviably happy relationships with both of her former husbands, Bennett and Matt Phipps, with whom she split in 1999 after 10 years together.

“We kept all the good bits and threw away all the bad bits,” she explains. “And there’s something about having gone through the ugliest of things with someone … If you are willing to do some emotional excavating, it can be repaired to again be unbreakable.”

Picture: Supplied

Even so, Yeow says she can’t picture saying “I do” for a third time. “I don’t feel it’s necessary, and I’m very unsure about cohabitating again,” she admits with a shrug.

“I think it’s very sensible to maintain a sense of individuality because so much of what is toxic about relationships is that merging, [which is] often what we think is the right thing to do. We’re now in 2024; I feel like we can explore other models.”

Her singular creativity has enabled Yeow to go from make-up artist to painter, to reality TV contestant, gourmet food market-stall holder and cooking show talent to the co-host of the prestigious and long-running reality series MasterChef Australia, an avenue that has consistently offered her the sort of challenges she persistently seeks.

Viewers fell in love with Yeow’s joyful exuberance and flair for flavours when she was runner-up to Julie Goodwin in the inaugural MasterChef Australia season in 2009, returning 11 years later to compete in the show’s Back To Win season. Now – alongside Sofia Levin and Jean- Christophe Novelli – she joins Andy Allen on the show’s new-look judging panel for 2024.

Read the full interview with Poh inside Stellar.

In red carpet mode at the AACTAs in February. Picture: David Clark

The line-up changes come after the death of former judge Jock Zonfrillo just under a year ago, and also following Melissa Leong’s departure from the show at the end of last season.

While comparisons between the current judges and those who came before them are inevitable, Yeow says producers have urged everyone to simply be themselves.

“They don’t want us to be mimicking anyone or getting into what I like to call being a typical ‘hosty’ host,” she explains.

“And, so, they’ve been very careful about giving us too much feedback and they want us to find our own voice and style.”

Co-hosting MasterChef Australia is akin to a homecoming for Yeow. “It’s a place that inspired and informed what’s become of me for over a decade,” she says.

And in regards to her family, who worried about her financial and professional stability, she says the series “really changed my relationship with my parents. With the whole notion of ‘face’ in my culture, it was such a public recognition of my capabilities that it made them go, ‘She’s going to be OK.’ Because, like all parents, their worries only came from a place of concern.”

Although she reached the MasterChef summit when she was offered a hosting role last year, the achievement came just a few months after Yeow’s mother, Christina, died in November 2022.

“My mum loved fashion and I get to wear so many gorgeous Australian designers on the show, so when I get dressed in the morning, my first thought is to send her a picture of what I’m wearing,” she says wistfully. “But also, being around food and stories is what Mum and my connection was all about, so she is ever-present in my mind.”

Compounding her grief, Yeow also lost her beloved pet dog Rhino and several friends – including Zonfrillo and comedian Cal Wilson – in 2023. “It sounds like a horrible thing to say, but I have gotten really good at grief because I know how to manage it now,” she says, adding that painting has also been a helpful therapy.

“Grief is not an unfamiliar thing anymore,” Yeow says.

“Working my way through Mum’s passing has given me a good amount of emotional armament. In those moments in the day when I’m overcome with grief, I now know it will pass. Having my art to process it really helps.”

In signature style for the sunny-natured cook, Yeow has managed to find the positives in a pretty dark chapter, including a reconnection with her father, Steven.

“If my mum hadn’t passed away, I don’t know if I’d have had the relationship I now have with my dad. Because of the cultural imprinting I grew up with, we always spoke through Mum to Dad because he was a pretty quiet sort of guy. And now he’s really involved with my life and we talk really regularly.

“I have realised now that there is beauty to be found in grief and that it can become a profound teacher if you let yourself submit to it. And there are always silver linings.”

MasterChef Australia Season 16 premieres at 7.30pm on Monday April 22, on Network 10 and 10Play.

Read the full interview with Poh inside Stellar. And for more from Stellar, listen to the podcast, Something To Talk About below: