Jock Zonfrillo's widow Lauren shares how hotel refused to put her call through to the room where her MasterChef star husband lay dead

Daily Mail​

05-05-2025

Lauren Zonfrillo has shared how she begged hotel staff to put her through to her husband Jock's hotel room as the MasterChef Australia star lay dead in his bed.
The widow of Jock Zonfrillo says she repeatedly called Zagame's House in Melbourne, where Jock was staying while on promotional duties for MasterChef, when jock failed to answer her mobile calls, but was mistaken for a 'crazed fan'.
Jock was found dead in his Melbourne hotel room about 2am on May 1, 2023 after police were called to conduct a welfare check on the 46-year-old.
Lauren, who was in Italy with the couple's two young children at the time, tells The Imperfects podcast that she sensed something was wrong when her Facetime calls went unanswered, and attempted to put a call through to the chef's room via the reception desk of the trendy boutique hotel.
'I called the hotel. They thought I was a crazed Jock Zonfrillo fan so they wouldn't put me through to his room' she said.
Lauren said she argued, 'I am his wife. I made the reservation. I've got the paperwork. It's on my credit card. I've got passports. I've got marriage certificates.
'What do you need to put me through to his room? And he said, "I'm just not going to do that."
'I said, "I'm on the other side of the world with two young children and I'm really panicked, if you could just knock on his door or something" and he said, "I'm just not doing that for you"'.
Lauren says she realised she would have to 'escalate this' and called the local police for a welfare check.
She claims the hotel also refused to put police through to Jock's room on the phone, which then prompted local authorities to arrive at the hotel.
Police later called Lauren back with horrific news - they'd found Jock dead in his room.
Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Zagame's House for comment.
On Sunday, Lauren shared the harrowing final moments she spent with Jock as she said goodbye to his lifeless body.
The grieving widow raced home to Australia from Italy with the couple's two young children, where she was faced with seeing his body in a Melbourne morgue.
Lauren told 7NEWS Spotlight's Liz Hayes on Sunday that she was full of fear - but needed to see her husband, and speak to him.
'I was scared of it, but it was just what I needed. It was just a very strange feeling' she said while tears rolled down her face.
'Jock was in his pyjamas. I could smell his aftershave. I could smell his hair product. It was just like Jock was sleeping.
'I went up to him, and I wanted to touch him but I was quite scared. And so I started with his hair, and then I could touch his face, then I was kind of, was okay with it. But it was really my time to say goodbye to Jock' she continued.
'He was still there. I really felt he was there. I told him that it will be okay, that I've got this. That I will make sure the kids live big lives. And that, no matter what, we would be a family.'
Lauren said that she begged her husband to tell her what happened to him, and wished that he would reply.
'I asked him what the f**k happened, and I just wanted the words from him. He just looked completely normal to me.
'I could not undo what was in front of me. Like, I am broken now. That's it. There's no fixing me. This is the person I love that much, who cannot be there.'
When asked to disclose Jock's cause of death, which has never been revealed, Lauren remained protective of her husband.
'A lot of people want to know the answer to that, I'm really aware of that. I've had a lot of experiences with people coming up to me, all strangers, and asking how Jock died, and it's very unsettling' she said.
'Jock was very open in what he was willing to talk about. And I now don't want to make those decisions, because I don't know what he does and doesn't want to talk about.'
Lauren said she 'has an answer' to what killed her husband, but 'it doesn't make a difference' to her grieving process.
There was widespread speculation about the cause of Zonfrillo's sudden death due to his well-publicised history of drug abuse and mental health struggles.
He left behind Lauren and their two young children, five-year-old Alfie and three-year-old Isla, as well as daughters Ava and Sofia from previous marriages.
At the time of Zonfrillo's death, Lauren had been in Italy and reportedly became concerned when her husband failed to keep to their usual daily schedule of telephone calls.
A senior Victoria Police source told Daily Mail Australia that officers who attended Zagame's House in Carlton found Zonfrillo dead in his bed and saw no obvious signs of anything suspicious or unusual.
There was no drug paraphernalia located, no one else in his room and police at the scene formed the initial view Zonfrillo had died of natural causes.
Lauren has never publicly discussed Zonfrillo's cause of death and a spokeswoman for Victoria's Coroners Court told Daily Mail Australia in February that the August 2024 findings of an investigation would not be published.
It is unclear if Lauren will reveal what she knows of what happened the night her husband died in her upcoming book Till Death Do Us Part, an extract of which appears in the current edition of The Australian Women's Weekly.
Before his death, Zonfrillo had been preparing for the launch of MasterChef's 15th season, which was set to premiere the night his body was found.
He was also in the early stages of planning a new restaurant and had started working on a cookbook prior to his death.
Zonfrillo and his wife had put their four-bedroom Carlton terrace up for rent ahead of a potential permanent move to Italy, where his father was born.
Daily Mail Australia previously revealed Zonfrillo had been diagnosed with bowel cancer in mid 2021, after recovering from an earlier bout with the disease.
It is not suggested the cancer killed Zonfrillo, only that he had told friends its return was detected after a routine colonoscopy.
A source said Zonfrillo kept his health problems from most friends and colleagues, receiving treatment including chemotherapy when MasterChef was not filming.
A fortnight after Zonfrillo's death his wife led about 200 mourners who gathered for a funeral at Macquarie Park Cemetery and Crematorium at North Ryde on May 13.
Among those who attended the service were celebrity chefs George Calombaris, Matt Moran, Colin Fassnidge, Manu Feildel and Shannon Bennett as well as Zonfrillo's co-stars Allen and Melissa Leong.
Lauren was among the pallbearers and delivered a eulogy before Zonfrillo's friend and fellow Scotsman, Jimmy Barnes, sang Amazing Grace with his daughter Mahalia.
Zonfrillo wrote in his 2021 memoir Last Shot about battling a heroin addiction from his teenage years working as a chef in Glasgow.
After moving to north-west England he sold cocaine and other drugs to supplement his wages, was eventually sacked and at 17 made his way to London.
Zonfrillo wrote that he turned up at Marco Pierre White's renowned restaurant at the Hyde Park Hotel in 1994 and the famed chef became a mentor who would shape his life.
He moved to Australia aged 20 in 1996 and got a job at Forty One restaurant in Sydney where he was using cocaine, pills, LSD and cannabis.
According to his book, Zonfrillo kept a raging heroin habit hidden from everyone before going back to the UK in 1997 when his visa ran out.
He wrote of taking his last hit of heroin in the toilets at Heathrow airport before returning to Australia in early 2000.
Zonfrillo opened his own restaurants, Orana and Bistro Blackwood, in Adelaide in 2013. He added a third, Nonna Mallozzi, in 2018.
The latter lasted six months, Bistro Blackwood closed in late 2019 and Orana in March 2020.
Zonfrillo joined the MasterChef Australia judging panel in 2020 with food critic Leong and restaurateur Allen after original judges Calombaris, Gary Mehigan and Matt Preston left.