Beloved Aussie chef Poh Ling Yeow has candidly revealed why she chose to leave the Mormon church for good.
On Thursday’s episode, the MasterChef favourite told her fellow I’m a Celebrity campmates that her family joined the faith after the Mormon church “came door knocking”.
“My family was going through some hard times and it was just kind of what we needed,” she said, adding that she practiced the religion from the age of 16 to 24.
“I came from a very conservative upbringing and wasn’t even allowed to socialise much, even in my late teens. And I thought, ‘I’ve just got to get out of here to be able to figure out who I am’.”
Poh left the church behind for good after spending time in Canada where she experienced a more liberal way of life.
(Image: Ten)In a bid to get out and see the world, Poh saved up and moved to Canada where she stayed with an uncle who lived there.
Poh’s epiphany came after meeting a transgender woman, who opened her eyes to a whole new side of life.
“That just totally flipped my world upside down. She was so kind to me. She taught me how to catch the subway, gave me mace, told me I could call her anytime if I needed help and she was just hilarious,” she said.
Poh told her I’m a Celebrity campmates that her family joined the faith after the Mormon church “came door knocking”.
(Image: Ten)Poh said Canada was a lot less conservative than the life she knew back home in Australia.
“I was going to friends’ houses and the mum would be like smoking pot. I was like oh my gosh my world is so different right now,” Poh laughed.
“It just completely changed my view of the world. When I came back, I was just transformed, I couldn’t really hold on to the views that I’d grown up with anymore.”
After returning home to Adelaide with a new lease on life, Poh said it felt like “the beginning of the end”.
“I didn’t know how to reconcile my new morality with the one that I had come from and I slowly drifted apart,” she said.
As Poh distanced herself from the religion, she met her now-ex husband Matt Phipps.
After returning home to Adelaide with a new lease on life, Poh said it felt like “the beginning of the end”.
(Image: Instagram)“He was a church member as well and we were both thinking about all the things that we didn’t quite agree with, you know?” she told her campmates.
Poh said things between herself and her family, who are still part of the Mormon church, became “very tense” after she decided to completely leave the faith.
“That was probably one of the biggest things I’ve ever been through in my life,” she said, adding that her decision caused “quite a lot of family heartache”.
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