With a dreamy French accent and culinary skills most only dream of possessing, it’s no surprise that longtime My Kitchen Rules judge Manu Feildel often has fans of the show swooning over him.
Hilariously, however, when the 51-year-old met his now-wife Clarissa Weerasena at Sydney’s iconic Ivy nightclub back in 2011, she wasn’t won over straight away by his charm.
Speaking with our sister publication The Australian Women’s Weekly in 2016, the brunette beauty admitted that when they first crossed paths, she had no clue who the TV chef was!
“He comes up to me and says, ‘Your friend says that you can cook better than me,’ and I said, ‘I probably can,'” recalled Clarissa. “I thought, who the hell are you?”
In a later interview with our sister publication TV Week, Manu shared his side of their fateful first meeting.
“We met in a lift going to a nightclub in Sydney. She didn’t know who I was,” he explained at the time.
“We didn’t see each other for three months after that, then we caught up for a drink. I was nervous because three months had passed. We didn’t see each other for another three months, then had some lunch. The rest is history.”
Who is Clarissa Feildel?
Clarissa was born and raised in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and moved to Australia in her 20s.
With the move came a realisation that she missed her mother’s home cooking – and so she started calling home regularly to learn from her mum and replicate the dishes she’d loved as a child.
In the weeks and months after Manu and Clarissa met, the future couple grew closer and closer until Clarissa’s talents in the kitchen finally convinced Manu that she truly was ‘The One’ for him.
“Clarissa ticked all the boxes – and that was the biggest box. I was like, thank God! She loves eating and she loves cooking – she’s perfect!” a smitten Manu previously shared with The Australian Women’s Weekly.
Head over heels in love, finally, Manu popped the question to Clarissa in 2013, less than two years after their first meeting.
Fast forward to 2015, and the chef and jewelry designer welcomed their daughter Charlee into the world.
Manu also shares a son, Jonti, with his former partner, Ronnie Morshead, a hospitality maven whom he previously dated for 12 years.
In 2016, Clarissa and Manu released a book they’d penned together, More Please, which allowed Clarissa to share her expertise with a wider audience.
She’s now a cooking expert and presenter in her own right, having hosted audiences at The Good Food & Wine Show and appeared on SBS and Channel 7.
After a lengthy four-year engagement, Clarissa and Manu finally tied the knot in a “beautiful, intimate ceremony” in January 2018.
Taking to his Instagram account to announce the happy news at the time, Manu ecstatically wrote, “Yes, it’s true I am married!”
“I’ve often said don’t believe what you read in the press, but now you hear it from the horse’s mouth, yes, it’s true I am married!” he wrote.
“Last week I married the love of my life, Clarissa in a beautiful intimate ceremony. We had a wonderful day surrounded by family and friends and lots of love and laughter.”
Is Manu still married to Clarissa?
Today, Manu and Clarissa remain happily married, although that’s not to say they haven’t experienced their share of challenges.
In a candid interview with The Jess Rowe Big Talk Show in 2024, Manu opened up about a dark time that saw him forced to close a Melbourne restaurant while Clarissa was pregnant with their daughter.
The restaurant had only been open six months when Manu had to shutter it – something he described as a “dagger in the heart and in the back at the same time”.
“The older you get, the less you worry about things like this, but at the time it was just the darkest moment,” Manu explained.
“My wife [Clarissa] was pregnant with Charlee. I just closed the restaurant. Obviously lost, you know, a lot of money with it, which – money is money – but I felt like I was, I didn’t get the support from the people I was dealing with at the time. And when Charlee was born, I was a horrible dad because I wasn’t happy with myself,” he told Jess.
Manu explained that the tough time continued for around five or six months.
“We all have our own issues, our demons,” Manu admitted, explaining that, as much support as you can have around you, you’re the only one who can resolve the issues.
The star said he “never wanted to go back” to that time.
“I was horrible. I was cranky, angry, disrespectful, shouting. I was a horrible person…. My wife and I now have been together nearly 14 years, and to this day, I am so thankful she’s still here for me because she could have told me to F-off big time so many times. She was stronger than me.”
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