The 2023 season of MasterChef Australia may have just wrapped up, but host Melissa Leong is giving fans more by sharing some fun and unseen behind-the-scenes snaps and videos from this year.
Since joining the show as a judge in 2020, the food critic's stunning on-screen style has often been the subject of media attention and viewers' social media comments.
There are multiple layers to this. On the one hand, it's a compliment and Leong deserves to feel confident in her job. Plus, showing pride in how you present yourself through fashion and beauty is no crime. But on the other hand, we can't help but notice that this heightened commentary around appearance is so often reserved just for women. We hardly hear about what men on the show are wearing.
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Furthermore, women of colour often face more scrutiny in the entertainment industry, particularly because there are fewer of them in the field, to begin with. Sometimes it's critiques about how they come across on-screen, or pressure for them to conform to a cultural stereotype.
In her latest Instagram post, Leong doesn't talk about her food-proof lipstick or statement earrings that so often trend on social media, but instead, the ability she has to present a version of herself on TV that feels authentic and like her true self.
Crediting her makeup artist Ben Dniprowskij for helping create some memorable looks on MasterChef this year, Leong writes: "Thank you for your incredible skill as an artist and warmth as a human/alien and most crucially, for truly seeing me: you've made me feel and look the most me I've ever been on television and that means the world".
Earlier this year, Leong told Refinery29 Australia that as she has become more familiar with the attention that comes with being on a national cooking show, she has also come into her own and wants to embrace fashion, just like makeup, in a different way.
"Yes, we started off with heaps of big earrings and big prints and things like that. In my earlier years on television, it gave me a sense of comfort that I had a sense of armour that I could apply to myself," she said.
"I think, now that I've been doing this for a couple of years, there's a bit of a paring back. I'm good with who I am. I'm doing the work every day to be better. I am not perfect at this by any means, but I'm really good with who I am as a person in a professional capacity and a personal capacity, and so I think I need less things to give me a Dumbo feather to make it through this job."
Leong will once again put her unique fashion foot forward when she attends the 2023 TV Week Logie Awards in Sydney on Sunday, July 30. Meanwhile, MasterChef Australia is set to return in 2024, with Channel 10 already sharing a casting callout for Season 16.
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