MasterChef season 3: where are they now?
Season 3 of MasterChef ran on Fox from June 4 to September 10, 2012, with 18 amateur cooks, Gordon Ramsay, Graham Elliot, and Joe Bastianich on the judging panel, and $250,000 plus a cookbook deal on the line. It produced the franchise's most famous winner and one of its saddest stories.
Fourteen years on, here's what happened to the people who made it deep.
Christine Hà, the winner
Hà was a 33-year-old MFA student from Houston, legally blind from neuromyelitis optica, and the first blind contestant the show had ever cast. She won on her Vietnamese comfort food and has run with it since.
Her cookbook, Recipes from My Home Kitchen, became a New York Times bestseller in 2013. She received the Helen Keller Personal Achievement Award in 2014, judged MasterChef Vietnam, and opened The Blind Goat in Houston in July 2019 — a 400-square-foot food hall stall that the James Beard Foundation named a Best New Restaurant finalist in 2020. It now occupies a full restaurant in Spring Branch. She was a James Beard Outstanding Chef finalist in 2022 and a semifinalist in 2023.
She also opened Xin Chào with Tony J. Nguyen in 2020, left it in 2023, and launched Stuffed Belly, a drive-thru sandwich shop, the same year with her husband and business partner John Suh.
Josh Marks, the runner-up
Marks was a 6'8" Army contract specialist from Jackson, Mississippi, eliminated in episode 12 and reinstated in episode 14 after winning the season's redemption challenge. He finished second.
He died by suicide in October 2013, at 26. He had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and, in the period before his death, was experiencing psychotic episodes. He remains the only MasterChef US contestant to die during the show's run of seasons.
The rest of the field
- Monti Carlo, eliminated in episode 17, became a Food Network regular and hosted the network's Help My Yelp, plus radio and voice-over work.
- Becky Reams, out in episode 19 on a frog legs dish, went back to food photography in Kansas and runs private chef and catering services on the side.
- Frank Mirando, eliminated in the soufflé challenge in episode 18, returned to wealth management in New York and cooks at charity events.
- Felix Fang hosted a web series for Vice, worked as a private chef, and moved into acting. She came back to compete on season 12, Back to Win.
- David Martinez left the show in episode 16, launched a private dining company, then went back to school for a doctorate at Arizona State and is now an assistant professor.
- Michael Chen, the meteorology student sent home in episode 5 for putting cheese in a pie crust, dropped out of college, cooked in kitchens across the US and Canada, and became a head chef.
- Stacey Amagrande ran kitchens at 7th Heaven Cafe and Desert Barn Brewery in California and now cooks privately.
- Tanya Noble moved to Australia, studied hospitality, and works as a private chef.
For the record: season 3 also introduced the redemption challenge, which is how the runner-up got back in after being eliminated. Christine Hà beat him anyway.
Editor's note: this piece mentions suicide. Support is available if you need it.