The widow of chef Jock Zonfrillo has spoken for the first time in a video posted to social media, telling followers of her late husband's Instagram account that she wished he knew how loved he was by people "all over the world".
Lauren Fried posted the video message on Sunday night, a month on from her husband's death.
"I put in a line in the sand thinking that at the one month mark I would turn some kind of a corner," Ms Fried said to her husband's 397,000 followers.
"Obviously that hasn't happened.
"And there's no time that I could allocate to say thank you to everyone, I am just overwhelmed by the messages that came in from people all over the world that knew him or didn't know him.
"I really wish that he knew how loved he was and he knew the impact that he had on so many people."
On May 1 2023, the judge on MasterChef Australia was found dead in a Melbourne hotel room by police performing a welfare check.
Ms Fried said she and her husband had worked hard on developing his social media, and that she needed to make a decision on what was appropriate to do with the account moving forward, and what material was appropriate to release.
"He's got a lot of behind the scenes interviews and photos from MasterChef. He's got books, a fashion range. He's got spirits ageing in a distillery in Tassie. He's got a TV show he filmed in Italy last year with the family," she said
"And so as I am kind of pondering what is appropriate or not, if I don't really know what's right I'll put a poll up on here and you guys can tell me 'yes' or 'no'.
"Somehow we will work out whether there's a path forward here or if we don't do anything at all.
"But thanks again and I will manage his channel from now on and I'll respond to as much as I can."
ABC
