EXCLUSIVE: Melissa Leong opens up about her relationships with her celebrity co-stars.

The Amazing Race 2025 cast.

The Amazing Race’s Melissa Leong shares an insight into the current cast dynamic after one team was disqualified during filming. Photo: Channel 10

This year’s season of The Amazing Race Australia is yet to premiere on TV, but rumours are already swirling that it’s one of the reality show’s most dramatic seasons. It was revealed in April that Ant Middleton and his brother Dan had been kicked off the series following “a verbal altercation” with TikTok stars Luke and Scott O’Halloran.

A Channel 10 spokesperson confirmed at the time that an unnamed team had been disqualified and “swiftly sent home” due to a “breach of the production’s code of conduct” on a day off from production. Since then, Ant and Dan have notably been edited out of the show’s intro sequence and promotional material, and have yet to post about their involvement on social media.

While the brothers have seemingly detached themselves from the series, one contestant has revealed that the rest of the cast has remained extremely close since filming took place earlier this year.

Former MasterChef judge Melissa Leong, who is competing alongside her best friend Leah Wilson for Orygen, tells Yahoo Lifestyle that the cast group chat is still going strong.

“Everyone’s in the group chat,” she shares. “It’s fits and bursts of things, but it’s really nice, because we’re keeping each other up to date with achievements and things that are going on.

“There’s a big chunk of us who live in Melbourne, so we get to hang out a little bit more, or there are more opportunities to do that. So that’s been a really nice little windfall from the trip.”

The Amazing Race's Melissa Leong and Leah Wilson.

Melissa reveals that the cast group chat is still going strong, months after filming wrapped. Photo: Channel 10

Cast connections before filming

Melissa reveals that she was one of the most well-connected celebrities heading into the season and knew around half of the teams before filming began in March.

“I was really glad about that, because I knew I’d be in great company. Travelling around the world is stressful, so doing that with people that I know to be wonderful, good-hearted people just gave me a lot of comfort,” she details.

“Tiff Hall and Ed Kavalee, I know through various friends, and I know Rob [Mills] and Georgie [Tunny] through Em Rusciano and have gone out to dinner a number of times with them. So I knew some of these teams socially or professionally prior.”

The Amazing Race also marks Melissa’s second project with comedian Steph Tisdell this year after working together on the SBS documentary series Great Australian Road Trips, which she describes as a “blessing”.

“She is one of the most talented, funny, good-hearted people I’ve ever worked with, and so I feel very fortunate to have done that too,” she adds.

A new side to Melissa Leong

Although she’s been a fixture on Australian TV since 2020 when she joined MasterChef as a judge, Melissa teases that her stint on The Amazing Race will allow viewers to see her “like you’ve never seen before”.

“Being able to just be a different facet of who I am on this show was a joy and a dream. We were put in the most unexpected circumstances,” she says.

“And for someone who’s spent the last half-decade doing highly polished studio shows, I’m not wearing Spanx, baby! No Spanx were harmed in the filming of The Amazing Race from Melissa Leong.”