Mara Lejins, star of The Chase, has addressed a badly timed joke she made regarding food poisoning.
In an episode that aired in Australia on Monday night, Lejins, 27, joked that her bad cooking had placed her lover in the hospital.
Of fact, the game was taped a long time ago, but it was televised so soon after a woman held a family lunch, offering a beef wellington, and three of her relatives died from probable mushroom poisoning, with a fourth still in a coma.
When confronted with a participant who boasted about their love of cooking, Lejins, known on the programme as the “smiling assassin,” remarked, “I’m also a fantastic chef and when my partner gets out of hospital, he’ll absolutely back me up.”
‘I didn’t do it!’
Lejins was quick to stress the timing of the joke was purely coincidental.
Sharing a screen grab of an article about the ‘untimely’ joke, she told her followers: ‘I promise this episode was filmed before the Death Cap debacle.’
Police are presently investigating Erin Patterson, 48, after it was discovered that the mushrooms in her beef wellington killed three family members and hospitalised another.
Simon, her ex-husband, accused her of murdering his parents, Gail and Don Patterson, as well as Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson.
Heather’s husband, Ian, is still in serious condition at the hospital.
It’s possible they ate death cap mushrooms, which are among the deadliest in the world.
Erin informed police that the mushrooms were a mix of button mushrooms purchased at a supermarket and dried mushrooms purchased months ago at an Asian store in Melbourne.
Erin spoke at length about the incident in a leaked police statement.
Erin stated she let her guests chose their own plates when she served the food before taking the last dish and helping herself to a portion.
Her two children ate the same dinner the next day, but without the mushroom because they don’t like them.
‘I now very much regret not answering some questions, given the nightmare that this process has become,’ she said.
‘I am now wanting to clear up the record because I have become extremely stressed and overwhelmed by the deaths of my loved ones.
‘I am hoping this statement might help in some way. I believe if people understood the background more, they would not be so quick to rush to judgement.’
The Chase airs on Channel 7 in Australia.
