Celebrity
Jock Zonfrillo’s wife Lauren had a heartbreaking decision to make in the wake of the MasterChef star’s death
In the days after Jock Zonfrillo’s death, his wife Lauren had a significant decision on her mind.
While still navigating the throes of intense grief alongside her children Alfie and Isla, Lauren wanted to do something poignant – to be a pallbearer at her husband’s funeral.
“I didn’t tell anyone I was going to do it until the last minute,” she told the Australian Financial Review (AFR) ahead of the release of her memoir ‘Till Death Do Us Part.
”I wasn’t sure what people would think and I wasn’t asking for any feedback.”
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Lauren felt drawn to stand by her husband until the very end, saying she felt it was her responsibility to “put Jock to rest” herself.
“Everyone is here to support us, but it is my job. It felt right that I would carry my husband to his place of peace. And he would have been carrying me,” she said.
“I was really proud I was able to do that. I think it says a lot to the kids, for them to understand our love for each other.”
Zonfrillo passed away suddenly in April 2023. He was 46.
In the aftermath of Jock’s death, Lauren was not only grappling with her devastating reality but was doing so under the watchful eye of a nation.
As a widely celebrated chef and a judge on the popular Australian cooking show MasterChef, Jock’s death shook Australia.
On top of that, Jock’s face was on billboards all over the country with his latest – and tragically last – season of MasterChef due to air that very night.
At the time, Lauren and her two children, as well of one of Jock’s two daughters from his previous marriages, had packed up their home in Melbourne ready to start a new life with Jock in Italy.
With nowhere else to go, the four of them were housed in a Melbourne hotel where they stayed for a week manned by security guards out of safety concerns.
”All of our privacy was taken away,” she recalled of the time.
”I felt frightened even leaving the house with the kids. My phone was going non-stop.”
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Lauren has since learnt to navigate life and grief since Jock’s death, but it hasn’t been easy.
She described grief as a “narrow corridor” that gets longer and longer, but she still continues to honour her late husband by sharing videos and recipes on Instagram and sharing insights into their life online.
Next week will mark two years since Jock’s tragic passing and the week after, on Tuesday 6 May, Lauren will release her new memoir which will detail her journey through grief after her sudden and very public loss.
One chapter, per the AFR, touches on the fact that she was approached by men interested in dating her after Jock’s passing.
“[Jock] was not that person who would have said on his deathbed, ‘Go, marry again, find another love.’ He would have been like, ‘No, there’s no one else ever.’
“So I do laugh. And I also don’t care. My life is full in a different way now.”
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