If there’s one thing celeb chefs are going to do, it’s stir the pot (ha!) — which is exactly what My Kitchen Rules star Ash Pollard did when she hit out at RecipeTin Eats‘ Nagi Maehashi over her grievances about sponsored posts in the online cooking space.
Earlier this week, Maehashi took to her Instagram Stories to call out PR agencies who send unsolicited offers to share promotional posts in exchange for free products, taking particular umbrage with their cold-email style and their “breach of privacy”.
“Dear PR agencies of Australia… Please take my personal details off your database. How did you even get my private email address?” Maehashi wrote on her Instagram profile, which boasts over one million followers.
“My personal details have somehow landed on dozens, if not hundreds, of PR databases, even though I don’t do sponsored posts,” she added.
Maehashi later clarified in a follow-up post that while she is often offered a pittance in exchange for social media content, her grievance was “not about money, it’s about breach of privacy”.
“No, I am not interested in creating 1-3 Instagram Stories (and) an IG Reel or carousel post to promote your clients’ restaurant or product in exchange for a FREE packet of Reese’s or a FREE bowl of pasta,” Maehashi wrote.
“It’s 2025. Spray-and-pray-copy-paste email blast outs aren’t a strategy anymore,” she added.
Days later, Pollard — who appeared on season six of My Kitchen Rules — issued a response to Maehashi, telling the Daily Telegraph she “wouldn’t be burning bridges” in the influencer chef space and reminded Maehashi of her own social media roots.
“I wouldn’t be burning bridges, don’t forget where you’ve come from,” Pollard said in response to Maehashi’s sentiment, before encouraging Maehashi to keep her PR connections intact.
“You never know when you might need to call upon these people again, and what’s so wrong with being an influencer?” Pollard said.
Maehashi has yet to respond to Pollard’s comments, but it’s not the first drama churned out by the celeb chef industry this year.
Back in April, Maehashi accused Brooke Bellamy of plagiarising her recipes for caramel slice and baklava to use in her cookbook, Bake with Brooki.
Bellamy denied the allegations, but the hullabaloo drew commentary from Martha Stewart before Bellamy’s return to social media in May.
Those allegations are clearly weightier than the tit-for-tat between Pollard and Maehashi, but who’d have thought Aussie kitchens could contain this much tea?
Lead images: Instagram
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