Grace Dent is stepping into a whole new spotlight this year, into the gleaming kitchens of Celebrity MasterChef as its brand new host and judge.
With nearly three decades of food-critic clout behind her, she’s no stranger to strong opinions – and viewers are already wondering how her sharp palate and sharper wit will shake up the long-running BBC favourite.
As she settles into her new culinary throne, here’s everything you need to know about Grace Dent…
Who is Grace Dent?
Grace Dent is columnist, broadcaster, author, food critic… the list goes on. She’s a woman of many talents it seems. The 52-year-old was born on October 3, 1973.
If you haven’t read one of her articles in the Guardian or one of her novels, you might have listened to her Comfort Eating podcast. Or most likely you’ll recognise her as a regular food critic on MasterChef and a judge on the Great British Menu.
Here she’s shown her ability to say it how it is on several occasions, so that has the potential to cause a stir in the kitchen.
While I’m A Celeb in 2023 was probably her first big reality TV gig, she’s also made appearances on shows such as Pointless Celebrities and Richard Osman’s House of Games.
Now, Celebrity MasterChef is on the menu, as she replaces Gregg Wallace on the BBC show.
Are Grace Dent and Susie Dent related?
Despite sharing the same surname, Grace Dent isn’t believed to be related to Countdown favourite Susie Dent.
That said, the pair do seem to have struck up a friendly bond. Grace appeared as one of Susie’s guests in Dictionary Corner earlier this year, and they’ve been happily exchanging tweets ever since – so if nothing else, they’re definitely pals!
Is Grace Dent vegan?
Grace has been plant-based since before it was cool, and has described her diet as “mainly vegan” or “flexitarian”.
Grace joined the several vegan and vegetarian stars who have taken part on I’m A Celebrity in the show’s history. Previous stars before the food critic’s stint include Mo Farah and Boy George. ITV producers made sure to cater to her dietary requirements and she was exempt from consuming animal products during challenges.
It meant she took part in the physical challenges instead, over the gruesome food ones!
Where does Grace Dent live?
Grace was born in Carlisle and then moved to London for her first journalism job as an editorial assistant at Marie Claire. She first lived in Bounds Green in her 20s, but it was definitely a fixer-upper.
She said: “The hallway was so rotten that one day I came home from work and fell through the floorboard — I had one leg dangling into the cellar. I managed to get myself out and I rang the landlord. He came round and offered me a box of Stella as consolation and I took it because I was 23.”
She has lived in Leyton for 17 years, but she lives alone as she and her partner have separate homes. But she told The Standard back in 2022 that her partner Charlie spends ‘most of his time’ at her house!
She has been mainly based in the capital ever since, but has said that she still enjoys regular trips back up to Keswick to see her family.
Is Grace going out with Ainsley Harriott?
Last summer, Grace co-hosted Channel 4’s series Best of Britain By The Sea, in which she undertook a culinary voyage around the UK’s coastline with Ready Steady Cook legend Ainsley Harriott.
Such was the duo’s chemistry that rumours began circulating that they could be in a relationship. However, there was no concrete evidence that this was the case.
But she did call him her professional hero, so there is a lot of platonic love there!
She said: “Yes, he is silly and very much what people expect, but he is also wise and clever and he’s been in the public eye for 30 years, so he’s really good at handling all the ramifications of showbusiness. And he is an excellent chef. We’ve been on the road and it’s been six weeks of him helping me how to master chopping things. He’s just taken my cooking to a new level.”
Tom Parker Bowles
Grace is also close friends with Tom Parker Bowles, who she worked with for many years.
They became friends after they co-curated the London Food Month festival in 2017. Although they both judge food, they haven’t stepped on each other’s toes. Dent is known for the Great British Menu and MasterChef while Tom is a critic for the Mail on Sunday and other outlets. However, they both appeared on MasterChef: The Professionals as well. They were tasked with judging the food created by professional chefs.
Considering they are willing to be brutally honest, they didn’t shy from how they felt about the food!
Grace and Tom also joined forces for the Too Many Critics charity dinner. They actually switched roles and went into the kitchen to cook for one another.
Who is Grace Dent’s partner Charles?
Grace has a partner, Charles, to whom she announced her engagement in 2021. While her career is in newspapers and on television, she actually prefers to keep her private life away from the spotlight.
The pair are still not yet married, but remain engaged. We also already know that they live in separate homes, but Charlie is at her house most of the time eating her food!
She did let once let her guard down on Kate Thornton’s podcast, gushing about how she and her fiancé had met online.
Grace said: “With my man, Charles, I think almost every day whenever I look at him: ‘How did I pull this off?’ Because before we got together, I used to follow him on Instagram, and he followed me and there was at least 24 months where I used to just look at his photo and go: ‘He’s so pretty.'”
Grace added: “It was very gradual because we followed each other because we knew people in common. I was in Liverpool working, and I was feeling really, really miserable. And then I just got I got this little message from him saying that he would like to take me for a coffee.”
And Grace wasn’t disappointed when they finally met in person, saying: “He was absolutely gorgeous.”
Charlie has never been pictured with Grace.
Grace Dent’s ex-husband
She has also made passing reference to a previous marriage in some of her articles. But we don’t know too much.
During the same podcast, she did briefly speak about her nine-year marriage.
Grace Dent admitted she missed the ‘digital’ era of dating when her first marriage broke down with her ex-husband,
“I felt like from 2002 to 2011 I had missed that stage when everything had gone digital….” She said. “You realise nobody is doing dating like they used to.”
She has never mentioned, named or identified her ex, but did confess she still has her wedding dress and rewears it.
The foodie explained the pair had married in Las Vegas, and that she wore a turquoise patterned T-dress for the ceremony. She said she feels she looks like a “million dollars” when she wears it and thinks her ex may be watching TV casually one night and recognise it!
Does she have children?
The TV star has been open about not wanting to have children.
She once wrote in The Guardian: “I do like children. Just not enough. This still feels like a radical thing for a woman to say.
“And children do like me, too. I have a big capacity for silliness, plus I resemble a sort of claymation witch, which they find intriguing. But I didn’t ever truly want one.”
Grace Dent books
She’s also a talented and successful writer too, releasing a series of Children’s books called Diary of a Chav and a Diary of a Snob. Each of the series had several instalments.
She also penned two memoirs, one called Hungry and another, Comfort Eating.
Losing her parents
Celebrity MasterChef star Grace Dent also faced tragedy when she lost both her parents within a few short years.
Before her 2023 journey Down Under for the ITV reality show I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here, Grace admitted she hoped her tragedies would make her succeed on the show.
She explained she had been “through a really difficult time” after caring for her father, who had dementia. He sadly passed away and Grace also lost her mother to cancer.
She wrote about her parents in a 2020 article in The Guardian. She penned: “There is so much I want to say to dad, but I can’t bring myself to…
“Dementia is really awkward, not just painful and frightening, embarrassing, I don’t like to be left alone with dad. But sometimes I can see terror in his eyes…
“Sometimes, as dad talks nowadays, midway through a nonsensical sentence his brain catches up, and right then, he understands the total ridiculousness of what he is saying, and pure shame passes across his face.”
She also remembered her mum, who died in February 2021: “My mother used to always say to me: ‘Every pot has a lid.’
“And I used to think: ‘Oh, shut up mam.’ But she used to say worse things. If two really awful people got together she’d go: ‘Well, at least they’re not spoiling two houses! I still say that now, when you got a really horrible kind of media couple — ‘At least they’re not spoiling two houses!'”
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Grace Dent’s stint on I’m A Celebrity
Grace signed up to tackle the jungle in 2023, the same year Sam Thompson was crowned King of the Jungle. She was part of the same cohort as Nigel Farage, Nella Rose, and Josie Gibson.
It was a surprise the food critic signed up because she was critical of the show in the past.
She condemned the show as “a puerile venture into starvation, televised constipation and animal cruelty, abbreviated by ads for Iceland £1 curries”.
But she said she watched it as a guilty pleasure, so it must have convinced her to sign up! However, she only managed to last 11 days in camp after she was ‘removed’ due to ‘medical grounds’.
The star was voted to do several trials, and fans believe it pushed her over the edge. As before she left she confessed to fellow campmate Josie she had “enough”.
ITV found a replacement for the upcoming trial and confirmed she had left the show. It’s also believed she was still paid in full due to her leaving on medical grounds. Although, the full reason why she stopped the competition has never been revealed.
Grace released lengthy statement after leaving I’m A Celebrity
Grace herself released a statement days later.
She said: “Thank you for the outpouring of love I’ve received since I was removed on Monday. I am overwhelmingly sad right now, but determined to keep alive in my heart the huge personal breakthroughs I made over the weeks.
“I spent 15 days without a phone or any contact with loved ones, living much of the time outdoors in a rain forest in very wet weather. It gave me a short, sharp glimpse into the pain some folk worldwide endure. Normal life, forever, will always feel beautiful.”
She also reflected on some of the gruesome trials she took part in: “I had no idea it was possible to be shown an American football helmet and be informed I was shortly to be locked in at the neck and filled to the eyebrows with cockroaches, and for me to think ‘OK this is doable, the trick is to breathe’.”
Grace added: “The jungle showed me that I am physically stronger than I thought; I can carry a lot of logs and water up hill, build fire and eat hare innards at dawn for breakfast.”
Grace Dent joins MasterChef
The food critic was excited to join as a host for MasterChef after spending time on the critics table.
She told the Radio Times after it was announced: “I’m over the moon about presenting the new series of Celebrity MasterChef. I was utterly surprised to be asked. For me, this was taking on the mantle of a show that I’ve watched religiously from the moment it began in 1990.”
Grace added: “I think when you ask people who work in television what it’s like, they always say the same things about how thrilled they are, but I genuinely am – I’ve lived and breathed this show for ever, and now I’m front and centre!”
Read More: MasterChef judge Grace Dent’s weight-loss ‘secret’ after eating 4,000 calories before 10am
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