Lauren Zonfrillo has revealed the heartbreaking reason why she decided to have her late husband buried rather than cremated.
The widow of MasterChef star Jock Zonfrillo recently appeared on The Imperfects podcast and made the painful admission she and her children needed a place to visit Jock.
‘Jock and I never talked about death, like, “Do you want to get buried or cremated?” she began. ‘So, I decided.
‘I know Jock would have said, “Don’t make a fuss, just cremate me”, but the kids and I needed a place.
‘And the ritual of the burial was a very important part of them processing what happened.
Lauren added she and her children found it cathartic to visit Jock’s grave.
Lauren Zonfrillo has revealed the heartbreaking reason why she decided to have late husband Jock buried. Both pictured
‘We go and visit him, it’s a really nice cemetery. We go out there for Jock’s birthday, Father’s Day, and have a picnic breakfast,’ she said.
‘We spend time with Jock, and it makes sense to the kids that they know he is there.
‘Alfie always lies on Jock’s stomach, like where he used to lie. It makes sense to them, they can visualise it is a place where Jock is resting.’
The celebrity chef was found dead in a Melbourne hotel room about 2am on May 1, 2023 after police were called to conduct a welfare check on the 46-year-old.
His grieving widow raced home to from Italy with the couple’s two young children, where she was faced with seeing his body in a Melbourne morgue.
At the time of Zonfrillo’s death, Lauren had been in Italy and reportedly became concerned when her husband failed to keep to their usual daily schedule of telephone calls.
A senior Victoria Police source told Daily Mail that officers who attended Zagame’s House in Carlton found Zonfrillo dead in his bed and saw no obvious signs of anything suspicious or unusual.
There was no drug paraphernalia located, no one else in his room and police at the scene formed the initial view Zonfrillo had died of natural causes.
The widow of MasterChef star appeared on The Imperfects podcast and made the painful admission she and her children needed a place to visit Jock
Lauren added she and her children found it cathartic to visit Jock’s grave. Jock left behind Lauren and their two young children, five-year-old Alfie and three-year-old Isla, as well as daughters Ava and Sofia from previous marriages
Lauren has never publicly discussed Zonfrillo’s cause of death and a spokeswoman for Victoria’s Coroners Court told Daily Mail in February that the August 2024 findings of an investigation would not be published.
It is unclear if Lauren will reveal what she knows of what happened the night her husband died in her upcoming book Till Death Do Us Part, an extract of which appears in the current edition of The n Women’s Weekly.
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Lauren said she ‘has an answer’ to what killed her husband, but ‘it doesn’t make a difference’ to her grieving process.
There was widespread speculation about the cause of Zonfrillo’s sudden death due to his well-publicised history of drug abuse and mental health struggles.
He left behind Lauren and their two young children, five-year-old Alfie and three-year-old Isla, as well as daughters Ava and Sofia from previous marriages.
A source said Zonfrillo kept his health problems from most friends and colleagues, receiving treatment including chemotherapy when MasterChef was not filming.
A fortnight after Zonfrillo’s death his wife led about 200 mourners who gathered for a funeral at Macquarie Park Cemetery and Crematorium at North Ryde on May 13, and he was later interred there.
Among those who attended the service were celebrity chefs George Calombaris, Matt Moran, Colin Fassnidge, Manu Feildel and Shannon Bennett as well as Jock’s co-stars Allen and Melissa Leong.
Lauren was among the pallbearers and delivered a eulogy before Jock’s friend and fellow Scotsman, Jimmy Barnes, sang Amazing Grace.
Jock wrote in his 2021 memoir Last Shot about battling a heroin addiction from his teenage years working as a chef in Glasgow.
Before his death, Jock had been preparing for the launch of MasterChef’s 15th season, which was set to premiere the night his body was found.
According to his book, Jock kept a raging heroin habit hidden from everyone before going back to the UK in 1997 when his visa ran out.