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What Matt, Gary once said of My Kitchen Rules

Sometimes quotes in the press can come back to haunt you...

Former MasterChef judges Matt Preston & Gary Mehigan are featuring in the new-look MKR, but what was it they once said about the rival Seven show?

History indicates it was Gary Mehigan who was the most outspoken.

Back in 2011 he told TV Week, “My Kitchen Rules is quite obviously a blatant rip-off and while it’s always nice to be emulated, in all honesty, I think they are doing very much what we do and I would like to see them be their own program.

MKR has really tried not to be too different,” he said.

“The set looks similar to ours and the phrases are the same. I ring Manu up every so often and tell him not to say ‘Your time is up, step away from your benches’ on his show because that’s ours!

“George and I have said to each other, ‘Ok, we can’t say that anymore, we’ve got to say something different.”

In 2010 Matt Preston said of their next MasterChef season, “I think the comparisons will be between MKR and Series 2, rather than Series 1 and Series 2. I hope because the production values on ours are so high that we will come out of it quite favourably on that basis.

“Our feeling was always that we wanted it (MKR) to be a success, not just because we know Manu and Pete. That’s obviously one element. But the real damage would have been ‘Oh no, cooking is dead as a segment, let’s move onto the next thing.’

“But it proved there was a genuine interest in cooking and how people cooked.”

Of course by 2019 he told news.com.au. “Taking over MKR as host/judge is not on the agenda! I have too much love for Manu, Colin and Pete to do that!”

To be fair, he didn’t join the show until Evans had been let go by Seven.

In 2020, he was a convert, revealing he wasn’t watching his MasterChef successors but Seven instead.

“I probably watched more MKR than MasterChef because I wanted to see what they’re doing and if there are any tricks we should be learning from them,” he said.

4 Responses

  1. … mind you, since in just over a week, Matt Preston has managed appearances on ABC (Aftertaste), 7 (MKR) and 10 (Masked Singer) all he needs to do now is get a kitchen-judging gig on The Block (9) and maybe hosting a Tonight Show for SBS where he can demonstrate more of his singing and dancing skills and he’s done the lot …

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