When you think of the biggest online personalities, you can’t pass without mentioning Chunkz, who has made waves in different avenues of his career as the king of content creation thanks to his own natural comedic values, infectious energy and his humble attitude. Naturally, many steps have been taken since his YouTube experience has exceeded all expectations, with Chunkz branching out to host high-profile events like the MOBO Awards to co-host Sky Sports’ Saturday morning show #SaturdaySocial and much more.
It should seem natural, now, that his cast’s efforts have opened up a whole new avenue for him, as he’s now set to host his own ITV cooking show, ‘Bad Chefs’. The ten-part series has been called the “ultimate recipe for disaster” and will see ten takeout junkies face the ultimate challenge of ditching delivery apps and learning to cook for the very first time. Ranked award winner Chunkz will oversee the kitchen bustle as the cooking contest unfolds – a spectacle that will combine the rising star’s enhanced culinary knowledge and natural charisma in front of the camera.
We sat down with Chunkz to learn more about the process of filming his very first TV show, and delved into his own fitness journey and career goals he continues to work toward.
Congratulations on the new show – it’s deffo a new avenue! How excited are you for this to launch?
“Thank you! I’m very excited, like you said, it’s a different path, something that I haven’t really pursued or done; having my own TV show. It’s obviously something you – especially when you’re in the industry that I’m in and in entertainment – you have to have your own tv show at some point so the concept made sense to me and that’s something that really appealed to me excited and yes, I can’t believe it’s finally coming out in September.
Are there any existing cooking shows that you enjoy watching?
“Yeah, I loved ‘Come Dine With Me’ and ‘Masterchef’ – those two, off the top of my head, I really remember liking and always wanted to be a part of them even though I didn’t didn’t know how to cook, but yeah, those two are definitely highlights for me.
I’m sure a lot of interesting things happen on the show – but were there any disastrous moments in particular that stood out to you during filming?
“Yeah, everything a girl called Charlotte on the show did was a disaster, to be fair. There were times she liked undercooked chicken, so she was trying to give me salmonella, the girl tried to kill me with food poisoning Yeah there were some hilarious times people tried to burn down the kitchen there were so many crazy situations that happened in the kitchen we had a doctor on standby and it was used over 50 times throughout it, it was overworked!
Did you learn anything while filming the new show?
“That people are actually very stupid, and that’s the way it is! I’ve become friends with everyone, so they won’t mind me saying that. Yeah, they’re amazing, they love people, but when it comes to common sense in the kitchen, it’s really lacking, and it made me realize that there are people who don’t stand a chance in the kitchen. And that’s what it was about – it was about trying to get the most clueless chefs together in a kitchen and trying to make them a little bit better and I think we achieved that with this series , definitively.
Can you take us back to when, during lockdown, you started cooking more? Were there any parts that you particularly enjoyed or things that you found the most difficult?
“Yeah, obviously there was a situation where all the restaurants were closed – my local Nando was closed and I was devastated because that’s all I was eating; I’ll be very honest, I didn’t know how to cook. But luckily my personal trainer, who was living with me at the time, was determined to get me to start cooking and stop being lazy, so we started with easy meals, like veggies and chicken.
“Then we started improving it and doing spag’ bowls, fajitas, and then it got to a point where they were calling me Gordon Ramsay within three months because I was backyard cooking everything. Yeah , I don’t like to blow my own trumpet, but let’s just say a Michelin star! But all kidding aside, that was something I had to learn or I wouldn’t have said anything. It was a thing where it was just pressure.
On a scale of 1-10, if you had to rate Chunkz pre-lockdown on chef quality, what would you say?
“Pre-lockdown? Frankly? 3/10, maybe 3.5.
So, do you think you would have been eligible for “Bad Chefs” yourself? Or don’t you think you were at that level?
“I’ll be honest, I would have been in the top 3 chefs based on how I cooked, it was so bad. As if my toast was dangerous, I had dangerous toast on me. I also had good beans and a good egg, so you can’t really mess with me! It’s funny but I swear to God, it’s always been solid for me. And I could also make good cereal with the milk ratio, like cereal was good, but yeah, that was before lockdown.
You have a huge audience of a younger audience in particular, so I think it could be very good for them in a way to see that you don’t have to stay on food apps. Is there any advice you would give to kids who don’t want to get into fitness/healthy choices?
“Yeah, experiment, you know what I mean? Try other things and see if you could potentially like it because I’ll be honest, I hated the gym in the first place and still don’t like it too much. But I feel like it’s a way of life, it’s a way to stay fit and healthy and avoid all those horrible health issues that can come and hit you when you’re 40/50 year.
“So I think it’s really important to try to stay in shape and try to eat healthy while you’re a kid and train while you can because who’s to say you don’t end up randomly in certain situations in your body and that you can’t recover? You might as well try to fix it from the start. Obviously, I don’t eat healthy all the time, but I just try to make sure I burn the calories. Sometimes your motivation and discipline drops, but as long as you keep going on that straight path, you’re good to go man.
How was filming this show different for you compared to YouTube or your other content creation?
“It was very different; obviously with YouTube, I take a camera and put it on the tripod and wade around for 20/30 minutes with my friends and we end up making a video of it. While television is much more regulated, much more structured, you have a whole production team telling you what to say, what not to say. Fortunately, I was with a team that let me take creative control of my own show.
“Also obviously the days are long, I was filming about 12 hours so everyone had better like it because we put our blood, sweat and tears into this one! But obviously with YouTube, as I said, it’s very different because it’s a lot simpler, I think, and it’s a lot newer. While TV is like the classic way of doing things and it’s also fun to get involved because I got to see the YouTube point of view and now the TV point of view so it’s is crazy that I was able to experience both.
Is there another avenue you haven’t explored yet that you would like in the future?
“Movies; movies, I said it loads and that’s definitely the one I didn’t touch on. I say this, but I haven’t actively tried to do anything! So I have to stop procrastinating and get started. I called my brother Ashley Walters, told him to give me a part in Top Boy but he’s not serious, he won’t come back to me so I’ll just have to humble myself and maybe do my own documentary on my own YouTube channel, so yes.
What were the reactions of your family and friends to the new show?
“My mum and dad are confused about how I got my own TV show just doing YouTube because they’re like, ‘don’t you have to be famous to do this?’ And I’m like ‘yeah, there you go’! I just took the mic off myself. But yeah, all jokes aside, they’re very proud of me, they’re proud of everything I do, so when I told them about the opportunity ITV gave me they definitely made it up because me and my dad use ITV to watch football etc and it’s a big brand so working on it with that has been really special. So, yes, everyone is proud in the camp.
“Bad Chefs” airs weekdays at 9 p.m. on ITV2 from Monday, September 26.
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