George Calombaris faced the biggest scandal of his career last year when it was discovered that he was underpaying his staff.
And on Wednesday, the former MasterChef judge managed to embarrass himself even further as he raised money for the Australian bushfires.
Taking the Instagram, the 41-year-old shared a post promoting the car dealership Remunerator.
Remuneration means to pay someone for a service, something that George failed to pick up on.
But despite the blunder, his promotional post was for a good cause, with Remunerator donating $250 from each order to The Salvation Army to help those displaced by the bushfires.
In July 2019, Calombaris was penalised $200,000 and his hospitality company, MAdE Establishment was forced to pay 500 staff members $7.8 million as they had been underpaid between 2011 and 2017.
To make the entire situation worse, his former MasterChef co-stars, Matt Preston and Gary Mehigan were later announced as hosts of Channel Seven’s new cooking series Plate of Origin – but Calombaris didn’t make the lineup.
In the last seven months, the celebrity chef has rebranded four of his popular venues.
Despite removing his name from the restaurants, which are now led by new chefs, they are still owned by MAdE Establishment.
When the underpayment scandal came to light, a tearful George sat down with the ABC pleading customers to support his business.
“I love the people that have worked for me and I don’t want them to suffer right now,” he said.
“Great restaurants are voted by bums on seats and obviously … don’t punish my people.
“Just know that when you come into one of our restaurants, know when you pay the bill, that those … my people, are getting paid and paid correctly.”
