Inside Poh Ling Yeow’s VERY modern love life: MasterChef Australia star’s ex-husband married her best friend of 20 years – and they’re all still friends
MasterChef Australia’s inaugural runner-up Poh Ling Yeow has rejoined the popular franchise this year for the all-star Back To Win season.
And while fans are well-versed with her professional career in the culinary world since her rise to fame in 2009, her personal life is just as interesting.
Poh, 47, has had a rather complicated love life over the past two decades, involving two marriages and ‘a love triangle’ with her best friend.
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Poh Ling Yeow’s VERY modern love life laid bare: MasterChef Australia star is married for the second time to aspiring actor Jono Bennett (pictured), but her ex-husband Matt Phipps is married her best friend of 20 years – and the four are all still friends
The celebrity cook married her first husband Matt Phipps in 1990, when they were both practicing Mormons.
But when they chose to get divorced after nine years together, Matt went on to marry Poh’s best friend of 20 years, Sarah Rich.
Poh then married Jono Bennett, an aspiring actor eight years her junior who was working as a production assistant on MasterChef when they met.
In an extraordinary twist, the two couples then went into business together, teaming up to open their own café in Adelaide called Jamface.
That’s different! Poh’s first husband Matt Phipps (left) married her best friend of 20 years, Sarah, Rich (right) after they divorced – but Poh remains on good terms with them both
Second husband: Poh then married Jono (right), an aspiring actor eight years her junior, who was working as a production assistant on MasterChef when they met in 2009
Poh has made no secret of the unusual arrangement in the past, but insists she’s learnt to make it work as mature adults.
‘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!’ she told Mamamia in 2017.
‘Everyone tries to complicate it. From the outside in, they’re all like “love triangle!” And I’m like, “no!” He’s like my brother now and I think … people are never interested in the back story. They want everything to be sordid,’ Poh said at the time.
Is everything OK? It’s unclear if Poh is still with her second husband Jono as she hasn’t appeared to be wearing her wedding ring during MasterChef’s 2020 season, despite other married cast members wearing theirs while in the kitchen
She and Matt have remained ‘great mates’ since their divorce, something that used to make her new husband Jono feel ‘jealous’.
‘It was something we all had to work on essentially,’ Jono told Woman’s Day in 2017. ‘I know it’s very human to be jealous, but it doesn’t make it right.
‘There’s a lot of history [between Poh and Matt], so it’s not something that can be taken away. It’s not something that should be.’
It’s unclear if Poh is still with her second husband as she hasn’t appeared to be wearing her wedding ring during MasterChef’s 2020 season, despite her other married cast mates wearing theirs while in the kitchen.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted Poh Ling Yeow for comment.
MasterChef Australia continues on Wednesday from 7:30pm on Channel 10
Tune in: MasterChef Australia continues on Wednesday from 7:30pm on Channel 10