'Empire' Co-Stars Squash Beef on 'MasterChef Celebrity Showdown'
Some of Fox’s biggest shows collide this week as Ta'Rhonda Jones — Cookie’s spitfire assistant on Empire — enters the kitchen to impress Gordon Ramsay. MasterChef Celebrity Showdown pits supermodels against supermodels, Brooklyn Nine-Nine against The Last Man on Earth, MasterChef vs. MasterChef Junior, and an Empire head-to-head featuring Jones and Kaitlin Doubleday, who plays Andre’s wife, Rhonda.
Jones’s Empire role, Porsha, was only meant to last a few episodes, but the chemistry between Jones and Taraji P. Henson was so electric, that she was promoted to series regular for Season 2. Will she be able to maintain her attitude when confronted with the meanest chef on television?
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Of course, Ramsay is much nicer to amateur chefs than he is on, say, Hell’s Kitchen. But even the Gordon Ramsay who lets himself get dunked and slimed on MasterChef Junior may not be able to contain his disgust at seeing an expensive piece of beef ruined.
“I like 'em brown,” says Jones with a head tilt that would knock lesser men to the floor when Ramsay asks her how she likes her steak. Will her brassiness carry her through the battle against Doubleday? Or will the culinary sin of a well-done filet mignon be her undoing?
MasterChef Celebrity Showdown airs Monday, Jan. 18 at 8 p.m. on Fox.
