MasterChef Contestant Allegedly Tweeted Racial Slurs
A TV chef could be in hot water for allegedly using racial slurs, and it’s not Paula Deen.
Krissi Biasiello, a contestant on MasterChef season 4, apparently sent out at least two racially offensive tweets last year on her now-deleted personal Twitter account according to a report in the Philadelphia Daily News.
MasterChef airs on the Fox Network on Wednesday evenings at 8 pm Eastern. Season 4 premiered on May 22, and the reality cooking show has already been renewed for two additional seasons.The series — which is a spinoff of the original UK version — features volatile chef Gordon Ramsay (of Hell’s Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares fame), restaurateur Joe Bastianich, and chef Graham Elliot as the judges. The winner pockets $250,000 and a cookbook deal.
According to TheWrap.com, “The 34-year-old Philadelphia paralegal, who like Deen specializes in delicious but fatty comfort foods, is accused of using the N-word in one tweet and making a racist rape joke in another.”
Biasiello still has her MasterChef Twitter account up in running, however. On that account, she describes herself as follows: “I’m loud, Italian. MasterChef season 4 contestant! Cooking is LIFE. Aspiring chef/goddess of baking …”
Neither Fox nor the contestant herself have as yet issued a response about the alleged racially offensive social media activity and how that could or will affect the competition going forward.
As the whole world knows by now, southern cooking diva Paula Deen has been engulfed in a huge controversy as a result of a lawsuit filed by former employee Lisa Jackson who accused Deen and her brother of sexual harassment and using racial slurs while she worked as manager of Uncle Bubba’s Seafood and Oyster House in Savannah, Ga. The revelations about Deen’s use of racial slurs years ago emerged from deposition transcripts in the case. As a result of this scandal, Deen’s lucrative marketing empire has crumbled.
Are you a fan of MasterChef? How should the show’s producers handle this bias controversy as a result of Biasello’s alleged offensive tweets.
