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Marco Pierre White claims: ‘Tom Doorley didn’t quit The Restaurant – he was sacked’

The famed chef has hit out at his former colleague

Marco Pierre White has claimed that Tom Doorley was actually fired from TV3’s The Restaurant.

Last September, long-time The Restaurant food critic Tom announced that he had left the show in a scathing article in the Irish Mail on Sunday – in which he described Marco are “unbearable”.

However, Marco has now claimed that Tom was actually “sacked” from the show, before being replaced by TV chef Rachel Allen.

In an interview with the Sunday Independent, Marco was told how Tom accused him of having “dinosaur tendencies”, such as his attitude towards women.

In response, Marco said, “That says more about Tom than it does about me. It is like he is writing about himself.”

“He is clever the way he worded it… It seems like it was his choice to leave. The headline reads [‘I cannot work with Marco Pierre White. I’m done with The Restaurant’] – when the reality is he was sacked.”

“This is a man who is hurting. So therefore he will write unnecessary things, because that is what he will do for a small cheque.”

However, Marco also made sure to point out an article Tom wrote about him six months previous, in March 2017, when the colleagues were on good terms.

In the article, Tom wrote about dining at Marco’s home in Bath, England, and he wrote, “I used to think Marco was self-obsessed, but no longer. He is a troubled man with a good heart and more than a residue of genius.”

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Marco pointed out, “A few months prior he’s praising me and saying wonderful things about me and then he is saying this? At the end of the day Tom is Tom. I am not here to say bad things about him – because as a child I was taught if you haven’t got anything nice to say, then don’t ever say it.”

“And so therefore I haven’t said anything nasty about him, and why would I? It wasn’t my decision that he got sacked. Why take it out on me?,” he said.

“I sit here thinking ‘where is the moral compass?’ He came to my home. He slept in my beds. He ate my food and then went off and wrote wonderful things, which I thought was very kind of him, and then he was sacked and then he wrote what he wrote.

“How can you stay in someone’s house, accept their kindness, write glowing things, enjoy their company and their time and then say that?”

A source has also told the Sunday Independent that Tom’s appearance on Bobby Kerr’s radio programme, in which he criticised the show’s scoring, led to his sacking.

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“Tom criticised the show’s scoring, and in our mind you just don’t do that. He got a call from the show’s bosses and was told: ‘That’s not on! You haven’t been happy on the programme for a while and so it’s best if you are given a rest for a season and then we will revisit it.’

“And then he went on to write that article. So it was our decision, it was definitely our decision,” a source said.

When Tom was contacted for a response, he said that he was deeply bothered by Marco’s comments, as he liked Marco on a personal level – but that was separate to finding him difficult to work with.

He added that his second column didn’t come about because he was sacked, he just felt the need to come out and explain why he didn’t want to continue on the show.

Brian McEvoy Photography

The new series of TV3’s The Restaurant, hosted in Marco Pierre White Courtyard Bar & Grill Donnybrook, is set to air on Wednesday, February 21, at 9pm. 

Check out all of today’s top showbiz stories on The Daily Goss;

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