Australian food writer Melissa Leong has spoken for the first time about the scandal involving her Taste of Art co-host Vaughan Mabee.<\/p>\n
TVNZ dropped the show this week amid revelations about some of Mabee\u2019s behaviour towards colleagues and fellow industry members.<\/p>\n
Mabee, a celebrated chef who led Central Otago restaurant Amisfield, left the company in February. His departure followed a workplace investigation including allegations Mabee groped a colleague at a nightclub after a work gathering at his home.<\/p>\n
Posting on Instagram, Leong said she signed on to Taste of Art last year, “excited and honoured to contribute to a show that celebrates the highest potential in cuisine artistry, as well as the tradition, culture and kai that Aotearoa is renound [sic] for the world over.”<\/p>\n
“And so it is with great disappointment that the show’s resounding success has been hampered by such unfortunate circumstances these past weeks,” she wrote.<\/p>\n
“As a victim-survivor, it would feel like a betrayal to me if I did not say something about the situation at hand, and it’s this: We need to listen when women speak up, because it isn’t without fear, trepidation and personal cost when we do so.<\/p>\n
“As 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. Much kindness to you all and I look forward to seeing you onscreen before too long. Melissa”<\/p>\n
On Monday, TVNZ confirmed it had removed the show from its on-demand site, TVNZ+. It comes after Australian broadcaster SBS axed the show from its schedule just days before it was due to premiere because of the news of Mabee\u2019s alleged behaviour.<\/p>\n
The allegations were first raised by Newsroom. Mabee has not responded to Newsroom\u2019s questions.<\/p>\n
However, in a statement provided to media, he \u201cunreservedly apologised\u201d to former colleagues, adding: \u201cI would just hope that anyone who reads these articles will understand that I am a human. And take into account that those of us who strive for outrageous goals, sometimes have difficult journeys because of the stress and pressure that accompany those goals.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australian food writer Melissa Leong has spoken for the first time about the scandal involving her Taste of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":425867,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-425866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425866","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=425866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/425867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}