Jock Zonfrillo's heartbroken widow describes seeing MasterChef star's body for the first time and reveals his devastating final words

Sky News AU

05-05-2025

Lauren Zonfrillo has shared the heartbreaking final moments she spent with her MasterChef Australia star husband Jock's body and his final words for the first time.
Victoria Police found 46-year-old Jock Zonfrillo's body during a welfare check at Zagame's House on Lygon Street in the Melbourne suburb of Carlton on April 30, 2023.
Lauren contacted the police with her concerns after her numerous calls to him went unanswered.
She immediately flew back home to Australia from Italy with the couple's two young children, Alfie, five, and Isla, three.
Lauren spoke to reporter Liz Hayes on Seven News' Spotlight on Sunday where she said she was "scared" to face Jock's body at the morgue, but wanted to see 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 through tears.
"Jock was in his pyjamas. I could smell his aftershave. I could smell his hair product. It was just like Jock was sleeping.
Lauren said she was "okay" after she touched her husband's hair and then his face and described the moment as her time to "say goodbye to Jock."
"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," she said.
Lauren said that she asked Jock to tell her what had happened to him and hoped he would reply.
"I asked him what the f*** happened, and I just wanted the words from him. He just looked completely normal to me," she said.
"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."
In a particularly emotional moment, the widow said she discovered Jock's journal which contained his heartfelt thoughts after his death.
"He wrote about how happy he was that we were finding our feet… how excited he was about raising these little Aussie-Italian-Scottish children," she told Hayes.
"He always did the voices when putting the kids to bed… and he wrote about missing those things and how he looked forward to getting to Italy where we were."
In one journal entry, Jock described Lauren's hard work and passion, which comforted her.
"He wrote…'Lauren didn't see herself, but I think she's just doing so much'," she said her husband wrote.
"She's so capable, and I'm really proud she can do those hard things."
"That meant a lot to me. It was like this message of encouragement. Like, you've got this, Lauren."
It comes after a coroner decided not to publicly release the Scottish-born restaurateur's cause of death, which police did not treat as suspicious, after a 16-month investigation into the tragedy concluded last August.
Lauren said she "has an answer" to Jock's cause of death, but "it doesn't make a difference".
When asked to disclose what it was, she said she did not want to make that decision for Jock.
"A lot of people want to know the answer to that; I'm really aware of that," she said.
"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."
"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."
Jock filmed MasterChef Australian season 15, which was scheduled to premiere the day after his death but was postponed to May 7.
It was subsequently reported the 46-year-old underwent treatment for bowel cancer after being diagnosed with the disease in 2021.
Born Barry Zonfrillo, the late chef left school early to work in restaurants and worked with celebrity chef Marco Pierre White in London at 17.
He emigrated to Australia in 2000 to work at Restaurant 41 in Sydney and later settled in Adelaide, where he operated the highly regarded venues Bistro Blackwood and Restaurant Orana from 2013 through 2020.
Despite their critical success, both Jock's Adelaide establishments collapsed in 2020 with substantial unpaid debts of about $3.2 million.
A third Adelaide restaurant, Nonna Mallozzi, closed months after it opened and posted losses that exceeded $140,000 in its brief operation.
Jock lost his family home in the Adelaide Hills after the closure of Orana and Bistro Blackwood.
The chef achieved new success when he joined MasterChef Australia in 2020 as a judge alongside food critic Melissa Leong and chef Andy Allen after the original judges George Calombaris, Gary Mehigan and Matt Preston were sacked.