Leong, who said in her 2025 memoir Guts that she was subjected to an unconsented sexual encounter in her 20s, alluded to her lived experience in the caption.<\/p>\n
Vaughan Mabee and Melissa Leong were judges on the TV show Taste of Art, which was filmed in Queenstown last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a victim-survivor, it would feel like a betrayal to me if I did not say something about the situation at hand, and it\u2019s this: We need to listen when women speak up, because it isn\u2019t without fear, trepidation and personal cost when we do so.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the situation is still unfolding, this is as far as I will speak on this subject. I trust you will all act with consideration and respect for each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
TVNZ removed the food show from its streaming service this week and Australian broadcaster SBS announced it would not air the series. <\/p>\n
Mabee has since apologised \u201cunreservedly\u201d to former staff, for \u201cinappropriate behaviour to them or any inconsiderate comments made \u2026 I am truly sorry for any harm or offence\u201d.<\/p>\n
Amisfield was awarded Restaurant of the Year at the 2025 Cuisine Good Food Awards and received three hats, the highest accolade. <\/p>\n
In a letter published on Cuisine\u2019s website, owner and editor Kelli Brett wrote that the Amisfield listing was removed<\/a> from the publication\u2019s 2025 Good Food Guide after allegations <\/a>of \u201calcohol and verbal abuse, lewd comments to colleagues and, at times, physical aggression and the resulting apology to former staff by executive chef Vaughan Mabee for his inappropriate behaviour\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is not a decision that we have made lightly,\u201d Brett wrote. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leong, who said in her 2025 memoir Guts that she was subjected to an unconsented sexual encounter in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":425223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1903,87543,16347,74,9092,1228,85,7573,169,2562,116402,37637,6125,156,564,2740,3958,154244,154245,175093,74216,111,139,69,3111,1305,17213,48499,417,86365,1965],"class_list":["post-425222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-abuse","tag-accusations","tag-addressed","tag-after","tag-against","tag-art","tag-australia","tag-celebrated","tag-chef","tag-claims","tag-cohost","tag-directed","tag-disgraced","tag-entertainment","tag-food","tag-former","tag-judge","tag-leong","tag-mabee","tag-masterchef","tag-melissa","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-out","tag-show","tag-speaks","tag-taste","tag-television","tag-vaughan","tag-writer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/425223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}