What really went down at that dinner table?

mkr 2025 michael rielli knife mel jacinta

Anne and Maree‘s Instant Restaurant on My Kitchen Rules 2025 (MKR) kicked off a bunch of drama, with Rielli jokingly pointing a butter knife towards Mel who got extremely upset. When it was Rielli and Michael‘s turn to host the contestants, Mel and her cousin Jacinta recounted the knife incident and played it up for the cameras.

Rielli tells Chattr that Mel had no reason to feel threatened at all, and believes it’s part of the cousins’ strategic play.

“If you look back at the clip, you can clearly see that the knife isn’t even pointing at them. It’s around the wrong way, it’s pointing at me,” Rielli says.

“I was clearly joking, and I don’t know, I just feel like they took it way too seriously, and it was definitely a strategic move.”

Michael believes Mel and Jacinta are trying to turn the other contestants against them, and has previously talked about getting revenge.

“I think that they’re just being drama queens for no reason and trying to put everyone against us, but hopefully everyone sees through them,” Michael says.
Mel and Jacinta on MKR 2025Mel and Jacinta on MKR 2025. Image: Seven

Are Jacinta and Mel the ‘villains’ of MKR 2025?

Rielli and Michael are diplomatic when Chattr asks if Jacinta and Mel are this year’s ‘villains’ on MKR, and warn viewers not to take things completely at face value. It’s reality TV, after all.

“True colours shine at the end of the day, I do feel like that,” Rielly says. “But I feel like everybody needs to take it with a grain of salt, because it’s a lot of pressure. It’s stressful. You’re tired, you sometimes say things you don’t mean.

“So I feel like on the TV show, they might come across as villainous, but I’m sure they’re not villainous people in real life.”

An upcoming preview for the next Instant Restaurant shows Mel and Jacinta dropping a bombshell about Maria and Bailey, so these controversial cousins are quickly making multiple enemies on the show.

How will this strategy play out, considering they need their fellow cooks to play nice and score them fairly when it’s their turn to host?