Official announcements from Australia’s Channel 10, a subsidiary of Paramount ANZ, have confirmed that Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, will join the upcoming 2027 season of Junior MasterChef Australia as a special guest co-host, appearing alongside established series regular Poh Ling Yeow. The news marks the former royal’s high-profile return to Australian television, following her well-received turn as a guest judge on the flagship MasterChef Australia program last year – an episode that drew the franchise’s largest Sunday viewership numbers recorded since 2023, per official Paramount ANZ ratings data.
In an official statement shared to coincide with the announcement, Meghan expressed unbridled enthusiasm for the new role, noting that her personal passion for home cooking alongside her two young children makes the opportunity to watch talented young home chefs showcase their culinary creativity particularly exciting. The official reveal landed on the second day of Meghan and Prince Harry’s recent four-day official visit to Australia in April, a day when the Duchess was notably absent from the couple’s scheduled public engagements; it later emerged she had spent that time filming segments for the upcoming Junior MasterChef season. Multiple sources confirm Meghan received no financial compensation for her 2024 guest judge appearance, though Channel 10 has not yet responded to BBC inquiries about whether she will receive remuneration for her co-hosting duties on the 2027 junior series.
The announcement of Meghan’s new television role arrives against a backdrop of intense public scrutiny facing the Duchess, stemming from recent child sexual abuse allegations levelled against her father, Thomas Markle. Thomas Markle has strenuously denied all claims, dismissing them as baseless “lies” fabricated solely to tarnish his public reputation. The BBC has verified that Meghan formally severed all contact with her father last year, notifying him directly that she, alongside relevant law enforcement authorities, was aware of alleged historical abuse of underage girls.
The news also arrives months after Meghan and Prince Harry revealed in August that they would be relocating their family back to the United Kingdom from their long-time home in California. The couple infamously stepped back from all official senior royal duties in early 2020, relocating to California that March to pursue independent media and commercial ventures, including a landmark tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey, and multi-year content deals with streaming giants Netflix and Spotify. Meghan’s previous Netflix lifestyle and cookery series *With Love, Meghan* ran for two full seasons and a standalone Christmas special, but underperformed relative to viewership expectations. Earlier this March, the Sussexes formally ended their content partnership with Netflix. Meghan’s commercial ties to the Australian market have been building for some time: last year, her intellectual property team secured trademark protections across more than a dozen Australian product categories, including cookware, table linens, and home goods, in support of her recently launched lifestyle brand As Ever, which features a dedicated curated food product line.