Image: Getty
MasterChef season one runner-up Poh Ling Yeow has had a relationship history as intriguing as some of her culinary creations.
The 50-year-old has divorced twice, but she has managed to maintain friendships with both of her ex-husbands.
Poh and her first husband Matt Phipps met when they were both Mormons, and leant on each other as they extricated themselves from the church a few years later. Though they divorced in 1999 after nine years of marriage, their split was anything but messy.
In fact, Matt has married Poh’s best friend of 20 years Sarah Rich, but there is no bad blood whatsoever.
“He’s my ex-husband. She’s my best friend. And when we broke up, they got together and it’s all dandy. It’s actually really good!” the MasterChef judge told Mamamia in 2017.
“Everyone tries to complicate it. Looking in from the outside, everyone says, “Love triangle!” But I say, “No way!” He’s like a brother to me now, and I think… people never care about the back story. They want everything to be sordid.”
Poh then went on to marry aspiring actor Jonathan “Jono” Bennett, whom she met in the MasterChef kitchen on the first season in 2009, where Jono was working as a production assistant.
“We didn’t really talk because the rules didn’t allow it. You can’t fraternise with the staff because I guess they can tell you secrets (about the next challenge) or something,” she explained.
“I think became got a little more charged because production prevented us from talking to each other. It was like the playground … cute looks across the yard, sort of thing. Then, after the show we hooked up. There was a wrap party and we exchanged numbers straight away and it was all guns after that.”
However, Jono admitted to Now To Love that he was initially suspicious of Poh’s bond with her ex.
“It was hard at first, but it was my own personal issues of confidence in myself and jealousy, which had no reason to be there,” he confessed.
“It was something we all had to work on essentially. I know it’s very human to be jealous, but it doesn’t make it right.”
“He’s like my brother,” Poh added. “We’re much better suited as friends.”
Poh and Jono’s relationship with Matt and Sarah was so strong that the two couples went into business together in 2015, opening Jamface café at the Adelaide Central Market.
After nearly six years of marriage, Poh announced her and Jono’s separation in early 2021.
“2021 is about doing the things I love and remembering who I am without another person,” Poh told The Weekend Australian following their breakup.
Jono and I broke up, but we kept working together and stayed the best of friends,” she confirmed. “It’s been the most untraumatic breakup possible, and I’m single again after 12 years.”
MasterChef Australia: Back To Win screens 7.30pm Monday to Wednesday on TVNZ 2 and streams on TVNZ+.
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