Ex-MasterChef judge George Calombaris reveals true extent of his alcohol addiction

Chef George Calombaris goes public on how he slipped into alcohol addiction.

Former MasterChef Australia star George Calombaris has revealed how a series of scandals lost his company $3 million and led to a private battle with alcohol addiction.

The Greek-Australian chef joined the cooking show as a judge in 2009 and quickly became a fan favourite both on-screen and off. He went on to build a multimillion-dollar hospitality empire in the years that followed, but back-to-back scandals saw it take a massive financial hit.

In 2017, the celebrity chef was involved in an altercation with a fan at the A-League grand final, and in 2019 he admitted to underpaying approximately 500 of his current and former employees $7.8 million in wages over a six-year period.

That same year, Calombaris and fellow judges Matt Preston and Gary Mehigan left MasterChef after 12 seasons over contract negotiation breakdowns, and, when the pandemic hit in 2020, Calombaris found himself at rock bottom.

Now in candid interview with Ouzo Talk, Calombaris details his spiral into alcohol addiction, which all came to a head when his brother found him drunk in his car one night.

“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,” the star chef 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 and his Made Establishment group of companies have since paid back its staff’s wages and superannuation. His company was also fined a $200,000 “contrition payment” at the time.

“We love in Australia [to] never let the truth get in the way of a good story,” Calombaris previously said in a statement. “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.”

As the scandal made headline news, the famed restaurateur was also charged with assault after he was seen shoving a 19-year-old fan at the A-League grand final, while allegedly being heckled about the wage controversy.

The chef successfully had his conviction for assault overturned on a 2018 appeal and a judge imposed a 12-month good behaviour bond while striking the criminal conviction from his permanent 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 KCs of the time,” Calombaris said in the podcast.

“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.”