The Duchess of Sussex filmed a one-episode guest appearance on MasterChef Australia earlier this year. Meghan’s guest appearance was a huge success – the contestants were excited because Meghan tasted and critiqued their food, and the MasterChef team seemed super-pleased with Meghan. Plus, it was a ratings winner for the show. That seemed to change something for Meghan, like she realized that she could easily step into an already-established show. That’s what Tina Brown said as well, that WME was trying to find a gig for Meghan on an established show. Well, it happened. Meghan will host Junior MasterChef Australia. The series will film next year in Melbourne.
Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, is set to join a beloved Aussie TV franchise – and will spend weeks Down Under filming in the coming months. News.com.au can exclusively reveal that the royal, who recently relocated back to Britain with Prince Harry and their two children, will be one of the hosts on the next season of Ten’s Junior MasterChef.
A source close to the production confirmed that the popular series will return in 2027, six years after its previous season, with Meghan appearing alongside MasterChef Australia judge Poh Ling Yeow.
Production for the main series takes place in Melbourne, where it’s expected the children’s spin-off will also be filmed, likely over a matter of weeks early to mid-next year.
With Meghan set to be based in Australia for the duration of the shoot, an insider hinted that Harry and their kids – Prince Archie, 7, and Princess Lilibet, 5 – may well join her, though no decision has yet been made.
The Duchess of Sussex said she ‘can’t wait’ to return to the programme, alongside regular host Poh Ling Yeow, after featuring as a guest judge on the adult version earlier this year.
She said: ‘I had an incredible time with the whole team at MasterChef this past April, so when they approached me to come back and work with this young group of talent, it was an easy yes.I love cooking with my own kids, so seeing what these young stars create in the kitchen is going to be a lot of fun. I can’t wait to see what they cook up.’
The Sussexes recently moved back to the UK, as news.com.au first revealed in August, and insiders indicated at the time that they were hoping to live as an “international couple”.
“They might suddenly go: ‘Why don’t we try Canada for a while? Why don’t we try Australia?’ It’s one of the great things about being private individuals [that they can live where they choose],” a source told The Times in August.
[From New.com.au and The Daily Mail]
As you can see, this is hard-confirmed, with Meghan releasing a statement about it as well. These cooking competitions film pretty quickly, and I imagine with kids, it probably goes even faster because they don’t want to have children unsupervised on a set for weeks on end. Arguably, Meghan would need to be around for four to six weeks, tops. And I hope that Harry and the children join her. My problem was with the Sussexes moving to England specifically, not the Sussexes spending a couple of years living abroad generally. In my opinion, they would do well to live in Australia for a few months. Plus, it would piss off the Windsors, all of whom hate the long-haul flight to Australia and avoid Oz at all costs.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images and MasterChef Aus’s Instagram. Screencaps courtesy of 10 News Sydney/MasterChef Australia.
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- The Duchess of Sussex, alongside staff members, serves lunch to a resident during a visit to McAuley Community Services for Women, a women’s homeless and family violence shelter in Footscray, in Melbourne, Victoria, on day one of the royal trip to Australia. Featuring: Meghan, Duchess of Sussex Where: Footscray, Australia When: 14 Apr 2026 Credit: Jonathan Brady/PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- The Duchess of Sussex takes part in the Scar Tree Walk in Melbourne, Victoria, on day three of the royal trip to Australia. The Scar Tree Walk is a journey connecting traditional and contemporary Aboriginal cultures and histories of the Kulin Nation Featuring: Meghan, Duchess of Sussex Where: Melbourne, Australia When: 16 Apr 2026 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- Duchess of Sussex takes part in the Scar Tree Walk in Melbourne, Victoria, on day three of the royal trip to Australia. The Scar Tree Walk is a journey connecting traditional and contemporary Aboriginal cultures and histories of the Kulin Nation Featuring: Meghan, Duchess of Sussex Where: Melbourne, Australia When: 16 Apr 2026 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- The Duchess of Sussex during a visit to Batyr, a mental health engagement programme, at Swinburne University of Technology in Hawthorn, Melbourne, Victoria, on day three of the royal trip to Australia Featuring: Meghan, Duchess of Sussex Where: Melbourne, Australia When: 16 Apr 2026 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- The Duchess of Sussex meets young advocates during a visit to Batyr, a mental health engagement programme, at Swinburne University of Technology in Hawthorn, Melbourne, Victoria, on day three of the royal trip to Australia Featuring: Meghan, Duchess of Sussex Where: Melbourne, Australia When: 16 Apr 2026 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- The Duchess of Sussex during a visit to Batyr, a mental health engagement programme, at Swinburne University of Technology in Hawthorn, Melbourne, Victoria, on day three of the royal trip to Australia Featuring: Meghan, Duchess of Sussex Where: Melbourne, Australia When: 16 Apr 2026 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
It’s awsome! Much less time consuming then producing her own show and it will support As Ever just the same. I hope it will go together with an As Ever launch in Au. Buh byyeee Windsors!! It should aslso answers KC’s question: he doesn’t have to bother reaching out to his son. They are leaving anyway.
Australia is so lucky to have her!!
i had a feeling something like this was in the works – I think I actually said I thought she might do more master chef performances – in Ari Emmanuel’s clean up from his comments about “not having to think about her,” he made some reference to reality TV as one of the things her agents were looking at for her – and I figured he meant something like Master Chef, not something like Real Housewives of the Cotswolds. cooking, kids – this is completely on brand for her and I think she will do fantastic.
Also the ratings for that one appearance must have been through the roof AND the master chef team must have genuinely liked working with her. You dont bring someone back as a judge like this if you hated her. Its these kinds of things that drive the british press insane because it turns their anti Meghan narrative on its head.
Poh spoke out in support of Meghan. Tabloids were fully lying about things Poh supposedly said that weren’t true. She said she’d never experienced anything like it and how awful it was. She doubled down on how nice Meghan was, and that’s not usual for this type of show.
Yes Poh spoke so nicely about Meghan , fully supportive of her .
Poh is very popular here too .
Congratulations meghan. Lots of seething at forest lodge by keens. 321 keen goes on a cooking show
And sadly, the usual suspects start trashing Australians, cooking shows and kids who cook in 3 2 1
This is in fact terrible news for the Keens – they usually take most of January off, but with Meghan out working and possibly being seen in Australia, they might have to keep up their punishing work schedule of as many as two (2) events per week, the poor sausages!
Happy for Meghan. Being a mom and entrepreneur is a job itself. Happy she is coming back to a franchise she first appeared on in the US version in 2016
She is going to be so good at this! I hope there’s a way to see it in the states. Go Meghan!
Ahhhh…Duchess Meghan in her element. I love to see it!
Here she goes again – earning her own money to support her family whilst raising her children and also doing selfless philanthropic work. Can’t wait for the inevitable criticism and mud slinging from the royal “journalists” (term used loosely).
Yes, but she’s doing it all while being Black — how dare she???
I’m sure this is all about disrespecting the late queen and something something Sandringham summit.
Oh, you’ve gotta slap the queen. Got to! How else are you going to get her to posthumously roll over in her grave? /s
This is exciting. It will be good for Meghan to be out of the UK. I’ve already seen one deranger complaining about Meghan and the family possibly be moving to Australia having just returned to the UK.
This must be deja vu for the derangers: “How dare she come here? She’s not welcome here!”
Then
“How dare she leave so suddenly!”
This seems like an excellent fit for Meghan – she has an undeniable love for food, she’ll be great chatting with the kids, and it’s a short term commitment. I’m crossing my fingers that it airs in Canada!
The other piece of this is, of course, the British media. It’s going to be a full meltdown. All of the fretting about the Sussexes being back in the UK and gleefully speculating that Meghan will be shunned by people in the Cotswalds, recycling old storylines about invitations to Christmas etc. And Meghan’s like, oh, did you think I was a prisoner here? Yeah, actually, I’m gonna dip out for a bit – I’m taking my family back to Cali for Christmas and then I’ll spend time in Australia, and then who knows? I’m sure we’ll be around for Invictus, but in the meantime, you’re stuck with the Windsors again. Laters!
Maybe it’ll film over the summer and they’ll all go? International family. Harry and Meghan bonded over their love of travel so it makes sense.
My understanding was filming would line up with summer, based on how past seasons have been produced anyway.
I’m so happy for Meghan. She seemed to really enjoy the MasterChef experience and everyone involved in it really praised her and seemed protective of her. The whole Australia tour was a success.
Meghan seems to have dismissed that old Hollywood trope about never working with children and animals. She is so at ease with little kids — this will be so fun.
And if they film in the summer, that will work out perfectly for the family. Their kids are going to be citizens of the world.
I live in Melbourne. Maybe I’ll see the family around! 🙂
Good for her. And it fits with her As Ever brand, her doing a cooking competition like this. I never bought The Gentleman nonsense frankly.