Celebrity chef and former MasterChef Australia judge George Calombaris has revealed the full extent of the personal and professional toll a series of scandals took on his life, including a $3 million hit to his business and a private struggle with alcohol addiction.
In a candid interview on the Ouzo Talk podcast, the once high-flying restaurateur said the fallout from multiple controversies and the pandemic left him at rock bottom.
“After Covid hit, I’m suddenly sitting in Melbourne, which is shut for now two years, sitting with my pyjamas on … looking at my phone going there’s no emails, there’s nothing to do (and I) start drinking daily,” Calombaris said.
“I’ll never forget three months down the track I lost it one night. I got in my car, drove down the road, I don’t know where [I was]. My brother found me pissed as a fart.
“And that was a moment, he really slapped it out of me and went enough is enough.”
Calombaris rose to fame as a judge on MasterChef Australia in 2009, quickly becoming a fan favourite and building a multimillion-dollar hospitality empire. But by 2017, his reputation began to unravel after a string of public scandals.
That year, he was caught on camera shoving a 19-year-old football fan at the A-League grand final. The incident led to an assault charge, which was eventually overturned in 2018 on appeal. Calombaris was placed on a 12-month good behaviour bond and the conviction was struck from his record.
“It was six months of pain you know, I had to go in and out of court three times, hire one of the best KC’s of the time,” he said. “I reckon it cost around 3 million bucks that, in loss of endorsements … Ridiculous, stupid, I would have rather taken that $3 million and given it to charity.”
In 2019, Calombaris and his hospitality group, Made Establishment, admitted to underpaying roughly 500 current and former staff members $7.8 million over six years. The revelation sent shockwaves through the industry and the public.
“We love in Australia [to] never let the truth get in the way of a good story,” Calombaris said. “The truth of the matter is that we overpaid and underpaid 51 per cent of our crew and 49 per cent of them, we had 550 team members and we found the problem.”
“We went to Fair Work, we owned up and we paid.”
The company repaid staff wages and superannuation and was fined a $200,000 “contrition payment” by the Fair Work Ombudsman.
Later that year, Calombaris and fellow judges Matt Preston and Gary Mehigan left MasterChef after a breakdown in contract negotiations. Then came the pandemic.
Alone, unemployed, and with Melbourne in lockdown, Calombaris spiralled, until a wake-up call from his brother forced him to confront his drinking and begin to rebuild his life.
His story now serves as a sobering look at the cost of fame, failure and, ultimately, recovery.
Images: Instagram
