'Why didn't you look after Papa?': Lauren Zonfrillo reveals devastating question her children asked her after Jock's death

Sky News AU

07-05-2025

Lauren Zonfrillo has revealed the heartbreaking questions her young children asked her after she broke the news of their father's death.
Victoria Police found 46-year-old MasterChef Australia star 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.
The devastating discovery came after Lauren contacted the police with her concerns after her numerous calls to him went unanswered.
She immediately returned home to Australia from Italy with the couple's two children, Alfie, five, and Isla, three.
Lauren spoke to The Imperfects Podcast on Tuesday where she opened up about both children's very different reactions to their father's death.
She said they were "both very upset", but Alfie asked numerous questions while Isla made statements.
"Alfie had a lot of questions, he wanted to know where Jock was right now," Lauren said.
"He wanted to know when it happened. He wanted to know 'am I sure (Jock died)?'.
"He went into sort of a little bit of bargaining. 'Will I ever be able to see him again'."
Lauren said she told Alfie 'no...because Papa's dead so he can never come back, no, not even for a cuddle'."
The mother-of-two said the five-year-old asked: "Who's going to do Lego with me?".
He also wondered whether Jock was "cold" and if he could "still go into Papa's kitchen?"
Lauren said she was surprised by her son's questions and their conversation was not what she "expected".
In contrast, the mother-of-two said Isla had just begun talking at the time and made more "statements" than her older brother.
"I mean, she just started talking. You know, she was really maybe three months into talking," she said of her three-year-old daughter.
Lauren said Isla told her, 'Papa gets really cold, so make sure he's not cold', and wanted him to wear a dressing gown and slippers.
She reassured her daughter that her father was okay.
"I was like 'when you're dead, you don't have any feelings like that anymore, but I know Papa's not cold. He's okay, he's in his pyjamas'.
"And then she got a bit angry at me. She kind of blamed me, and she's done that a couple of times, and I've learned not to let it upset me because it's not her blaming me.
"But she said to me, 'Well, you look after our family, so why didn't you look after Papa?
Lauren said Isla asked her why she "didn't give him medicine, knew he had a temperature, and wasn't with him now."
"'Why are you here? Shouldn't you be with him there?" her daughter asked.
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 was asked to disclose his cause of death on Sunday when she spoke to Liz Hayes on Seven News' Spotlight in her first major interview.
She replied by saying she "has an answer" to the cause, but "it doesn't make a difference".
"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."
Elsewhere in the raw interview, Lauren also said she was "scared" to face Jock's body at the morgue, but wanted to see and speak to him.
"I asked him what the f*** happened, and I just wanted the words from him. He just looked completely normal to me," she said.
In a particularly emotional moment, the widow recounted she discovered Jock's journal which contained his heartfelt thoughts thoughts about her hard work and dedication after his death and said that gave her comfort.
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.
After the collapse of his restaurants, 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.