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We've been missing the incredible charisma, talent, and fashion of Melissa Leong on our television screens since the end of MasterChef Australia 2021 in July.

But as her fan base continues to grow with each season of the Channel 10 cooking show, the food and travel writer has said she struggles with the growing fascination into her private life, particularly after her divorce from her husband.

Here's what the popular judge has shared with the Australia about her life and career.

Watch: Melissa Leong on MasterChef helping to calm down contestant Dani. Post continues below.

Melissa Leong's passion for food.

Born in Sydney to parents who immigrated from Singapore in the 70s, Leong, 39, first studied accounting and economics and worked in digital advertising before eventually turning her love for food into her full-time job.

In an interview with Design Files in 2019, she said working in advertising “left her unfulfilled and fantasising about pushing her boss out the window”.

A lifelong passion for food saw her make the switch, and saw her go on to work in practically every facet of the Australian media food space.

In TV, she’s worked onEveryday Gourmet,The Cook’s Pantryand theChef’s Line,but Leong is also a cookbook editor, food media consultant, travel writer and radio host. Her Instagram, which operates under the name “Fooderati”, is filled with delectable food photos from her career, travels and own kitchen.

But behind her smiling demeanour and infectious energy, Leong has a history of mental health struggles.

“I started going to therapy in my early to mid-20s. I had a breakdown, I’ll be really honest. I don’t hide it but I don’t advertise that either,’’ she told the WeAre TheReal Onespodcast.

“It has been part of my life and my story. It was an instance of too much on the plate and the plate ended up breaking under the weight of all those things.”

Since then, she's done a lot of work to ensure she's in touch with how she's feeling, telling the podcast: “The only person who can pick you up and put you back together and help you navigate all of the struggles in life, is you.

“There are some times when I just need to go into a quiet space and shut the door and have half an hour to myself.

“If I need a day like that where I just need that little bubble of time, it could be 10 minutes, I will tell [theMasterChefcrew] and they will find the next available opportunity for me to just have a minute. It doesn’t take long, it could just be five minutes, just to kind of be quiet and then you gather yourself and keep going," she said.

Leong struggles from anxiety, which she says is often sparked when she walks into a room full of people she doesn’t know.

“If I know you, then great, if I know I’m walking into a room full of people I do not know then I’m racked with anxiety,” she told the podcast.

In recent years, Leong was diagnosed with an autoimmune condition that left her bedridden for months. Speaking to Who , she explained that she had Pyrrole disorder which is a stress-induced disease that left her "extremely unwell" and unable to work.

"Through a correct diagnosis, supplements and good nutrition, I was able to slowly get better. But that time was a great exercise in patience for me because, as I’d lived my life at full throttle previously, I hadn’t been very good at patience. I had to slow down, I was forced to, but it was a good lesson to learn," she told the publication.

Melissa Leong's new love after divorce.

In December 2020, Leong announced her separation from her husband of almost four years, Joe Jones, who is a classically French-trained chef and owns Melbourne cocktail bar, Romeo Lane.

The couple, who met through a mutual friend, eloped to the Californian desert and got married in a '60s rock’n’roll themed ceremony in February 2017.

Sharing the story of her engagement with Vogue, she said it happened after a casual conversation over dinner one evening.

"Over dinner, Joe asked me, 'So, how does eloping work exactly? Do you need to get engaged first?' I told him I had about as much idea as he did (none), so instead, we decided to speculate on where we’d run away to, if we did decide to elope. The all-knowing dice decided that our already planned trip to the US in three-ish months would be it, so we just went with it," she said.

But after three years of marriage, the couple called it quits.

"It has brought us such happiness to walk together, but the time has come for Joe and I to part ways and walk on, apart," Leong said