Pettifleur Berenger is used to the claws coming out during The Real Housewives Of Melbourne.
In fact, she insists Hell’s Kitchen Australia chef Marco Pierre White is tame compared to her fellow housewives.
“Hell’s Kitchen was a breeze,” the 52-year-old says. “On that show [RHOM], you are expecting to be attacked by every single woman.
“I remember sitting down on the Hell’s Kitchen set, tapping my feet and waiting for something crazy to happen because it was all so relaxed.”
While she admits the stress of keeping up in the kitchen was intense, Pettifleur claims she found the reality set a picture of serenity.
“On Housewives, you’ve got to watch what you say,” she explains. “I’ll do Hell’s Kitchen a million times, because I like to be able to be my real self.”
However, Pettifleur did enjoy causing chaos at times by riling up fellow contestant David Oldfield.
“I thought he was a browbeaten husband, a stay at home dad,” she says.
But when his first comments to Pettifleur, herself a former Real Housewife, were all about the shortcomings of his wife, that pity soon turned to anger.
Not only did she believe it was unacceptable that he talked so badly about his wife to complete strangers, but she says what she perceives to be David’s disrespect towards women soon spilled over onto his Hell’s Kitchen companions.
“My feeling was that he has something against women,” Pettifleur, 52, says of the former One Nation politician.
“He had a massive altercation with Candace Falzon which was just awful. I have to say though, I’m no saint. I would stir him on a bit because I was having a lot of fun.”
Likening the feud in the kitchen to being “a comedy” Pettifleur says the air often turned blue as David responded to her jibes.
“He didn’t let me talk without telling me to shut up or the swear words would come out,” she says.
“There were a few horrible things said and then it was hard to get back to a neutral place with him. But from my end I wasn’t bothered by it because I just ignored any insults he made and I didn’t take it personally.”
