MasterChef Celebrity returns this Thursday night to the RTVE La 1 grid with a new edition, the eighth, which is preceded by controversy. During the presentation of the culinary contest, which took place on Wednesday afternoon at the Vitoria FesTVal, the three members of the jury gave statements to the press in which they frivolized about the Rubiales case, just the same day that the soccer player Jenni Hermoso denounced to the State Attorney General’s Office the non-consensual kiss that the president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation gave him, in front of everyone, during the celebration of his World Cup victory.
The issue arose because some social media users compared what happened in Australia with another situation that took place on their program, when Anabel Alonso, a contestant, kissed Jordi Cruz, a member of the jury. He assured the press yesterday that “it is not comparable” and argued: “When the thing about Anabel came out I read it and it didn’t occur to me to answer or say anything, but I would call her now to say ‘friend, I’m very sorry.’ “An opinion of his has been mixed with a kiss he gave me as a joke and one thing has nothing to do with the other, even though aesthetically it seems the same.” However, the judges commented on the kissing issue between jokes of dubious taste.
“I think there has been too much talk about Anabel’s kiss and not enough about the one Tamara Falcó gave me,” Cruz said, laughing. “Was that wanted or not?” Samantha Vallejo-Nágera asked and Pepe Rodríguez added: “I saw that he grabbed you. And you haven’t reported it, that?”
The latter stated that this was “the peak edition” of MasterChef, “Not by chance. As these last few weeks progressed, we said: the one that is going to fall to us.” His partner even joked about the participation of the former president of the RFEF in the public television contest: “They want to call Rubiales for next year!”
The unfortunate conversation, in which the three chefs participated as representatives of both MasterChef and public television, has been so controversial that the program’s producer has released a statement of rejection: “Given the statements made yesterday in the presentation to the media MasterChef Celebrity 8 regarding the so-called Rubiales Case, Shine Iberia wants to clarify that it deeply regrets the unfortunate comments that took place during the interviews, in no case does it justify them and strongly condemns any type of sexual violence. We apologize.”
Consolidated as one of the most solid prime time productions on RTVE’s La 1, MasterChef Celebrity returns to fill Thursday night with fires and brawls and a new celebrity casting made up of Jesulín de Ubrique, Toñi Moreno, Álvaro Muñoz Escassi, Eduardo Casanova, Genoveva Casanova, Blanca Romero, Sandra Gago, Jorge Sanz, Laura Londoño, Tania Llasera, Miguel Diosdado, Daniel Illescas, Palito Dominguín and Jorge and César Cadaval, Los Morancos, who play separately.
The aspiring chefs will compete against each other, but also against the return of GH Vip on Telecinco, since both formats broadcast on Thursday night. It’s a strategy of the channel that Pepe Rodríguez has criticized: “Someone has programmed it wrong. There’s no need, damn it. Play one thing one day and another day another. I see it that way, so that people have fun two days in a row and don’t mind. You have there that ‘let’s see what I see today’ and that if RTVE Play”.