MasterChef's Melissa Leong hits back at troll: 'What do you do?'

MasterChef judge Melissa Leong has delivered a scathing takedown of a cruel troll on social media. The star, 41, was targeted by a MasterChef fan who questioned why she was picked to appear on the cooking show.

In a Facebook comment, he wrote that the producers “scraped the bottom of the barrel” when they decided to cast Melissa, saying that she hasn’t ever owned a restaurant, and isn’t a “world-renowned food critic”.

The popular TV personality has Chinese ancestry, with her parents emigrating to Australia from Singapore. She hit back at the troll on Instagram, saying that she’s ‘used to being overlooked’ due to her ethnicity.

“Anyone know if Gerard is single? Asking for a friend,” she quipped, before launching into a passionate tirade.

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“Haven’t owned restaurants, just written for half a dozen of Australia’s highest profile publications for over a decade. It’s ok though, us non-white males are used to [being] overlooked. It’s how you don’t see us coming till we’ve arrived,” she wrote, on top of a screenshot of the fan exchange.

She then shared a compilation of popular cookbooks she has worked on, flipping the script and asking the MasterChef fan what his qualifications were.

“There’s also about half a dozen or so cookbooks and magazines I’ve ghostwritten, edited or subbed, not to mention working with industry legends like Marco Pierre White, Gelato Messina, Zumbo, MLA and more,” she added.

“If that’s scraping the bottom of the barrel, Gerrard, it must be very hard to see me from your lofty seat in the clouds doing…what is it you do exactly?

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"Thank you armchair prince, I’m sorry you’ve had such a bad day you feel the need to s**t on a stranger who had bled for her career,” she fired out.

Melissa also shared that she co-hosted and judged another cooking show called The Chef’s Line about ten years ago, and took one final parting shot at the hater.

“FYI, I am writing this while sitting in my house, that I bought all by myself, with my unqualified, ill-gotten gains. Cheers,” she wrote.

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