MasterChef judge Andy Allen reveals the chilling thing he had to do for Jock Zonfrillo's wife when she called him at 4.30am to tell him he had died
Jock, who was found dead aged 46 in a Melbourne hotel room in 2023, co-judged alongside Andy on MasterChef Australia from 2020 up until his death.
On Tuesday, Andy shared on LiSTNR's A Life of Greatness with Sarah Grynberg that Jock's widow Lauren Fried called him 'in hysterics' just hours after his death and asked the food critic, 37, to cover Jock's press interviews.
'I get a call at about 4.30 in the morning from Lauren in hysterics and telling me what had happened, that Jock had passed away,' Andy recounted.
'And I was then like…what do you need? And she was like, "I don't know what to do. He's got a lot of press to do this morning."'
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'And I had a bit of press to do as well,' Andy continued.
'I was like, okay, I'll go do his press because she didn't want to go to ten… she needed to get a plan together and deal with it.'
In another cruel twist of fate, Andy, whose birthday also falls on April 30 when Jock died, was forced to see the hotel Jock died in just hours earlier.
Living in Carlton, the suburb Jock passed away in, Andy ordered a car to take him to his first interview, and the driver happened to go past the very hotel Jock's body was discovered in.
'Talk about just being rattled again. I was trying so hard to get in the zone and get done what I needed to do,' he said.
It comes after Andy praised Lauren for candidly opening up about life after Jock's passing in her recently released book Till Death Do Us Part.
Andy took to Instagram in May with a picture of himself holding the book up as he offered a simple six word review.
'In awe of you @laurenzonfrillo,' Andy wrote, while urging his 385,000 followers to pick up a copy of the memoir.
Andy had also previously opened up about his final meeting with Jock, revealing he saw the late celebrity chef just a couple of hours before he died.
In a sit-down interview with 7NEWS Spotlight in May, Andy recalled how he met Jock for lunch the day before his body was discovered.
'I've got hairs standing up already,' he told Liz Hayes as he looked back on his and Jock's final meal together, a moment he reflects back on a lot.
Andy went on to reveal he had no idea there was anything amiss during his last meeting with the celebrity chef.
'That's the thing that hurts the most, because it was so sudden,' he told Liz with tears in his eyes.
Elsewhere in the heartbreaking interview, Andy recounted the moment he was given the news of Jock's passing by Lauren.
The chef admitted the grief of losing his close friend hit him 'straight away', a feeling that made him instantly ill.
'As soon as I got off the phone, I ran straight to the bathroom and I vomited everywhere,' he said.
Andy also shared how he still grieves his friend daily.
'I always think of him. And I miss him, I miss him so much. It's crazy that that never goes,' he said.
'That being reminded of him wherever I go and no matter what I do, it is still as strong as the day that he passed two years ago.'
Jock was found dead at the Zagame's House hotel in Carlton, near Melbourne's CBD, at around 2am on May 1, 2023.
At the time, his wife Lauren was in Italy with their two children and had phoned Victoria Police to request a welfare check because he stopped answering her calls.
Jock's death came just one day before the 2023 season of MasterChef was due to premiere, and it was delayed in arriving on air for a week 'out of respect'.
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