The Duchess of Sussex is returning to TV with a major guest role on a popular Australian show.

Meghan Markle will have a guest-starring role on Junior MasterChef when it returns to Aussie television in 2027, it has been confirmed.

Network Ten is reviving the MasterChef spinoff, which features the nation’s youngest aspiring chefs showing off their skills, creativity and passion for food. It last ran in 2021.

Confirmation of the duchess’s role came on Tuesday, ahead of Ten’s upfronts for 2027. It follows Meghan’s surprise guest role on the most recent season of MasterChef, filmed during her visit to Australia with husband Prince Harry earlier this year.

“I had an incredible time with the whole team at MasterChef this past April, so when they approached me to come back and work with this young group of talent, it was an easy yes,” she said, via a Ten spokesperson.

“I love cooking with my own kids, so seeing what these young stars create in the kitchen is going to be a lot of fun. I can’t wait to see what they cook up.”

Ten was keen to talk up Meghan’s Emmy nomination for her Netflix series, With Love, Meghan, and also that she was a guest judge on Food Network’s Chopped Junior in the US in 2016.

Meghan Markle will join the MasterChef set again in 2027. Photo: Network Ten

Junior MasterChef will be hosted by Poh Ling Yeow, who will also host series 19 of MasterChef, alongside Andy Allen, Sofia Levin and Jean-Christophe Novelli.

Production for the main series is in Melbourne, with the Junior spin-off also expected to be filmed there in the first half of 2027.

The TV update comes amid a developing scandal about Meghan’s father, Thomas Markle.

Meghan’s half-brother, Thomas Markle junior, last week told British media he found a stash of child sex abuse images belonging to their father at his former home in the Philippines, and subsequently reported it to local police and the FBI.

Since then Markle senior has admitted to paying for sex in the South-East Asian country but denied ever possessing a hoard of such material.

According to reports in The Sun at the weekend, Meghan sent a final letter to her father while he was recovering there from a leg amputation in 2025.

She wrote to say she knew he was an abuser and he would never see his grandchildren Archie, seven, and Lilibet, five, the outlet said.

Philippine Interior Minister Jonvic Remulla told The Guardian that a forensic investigation into Markle senior would be completed soon, and would provide a “definitive picture”.

“In these cases where family disputes are mixed up, we have to consider all the angles,” he said.

“Right now all signs point to a possible sex offender of the grossest kind. We want to be sure before we release the findings.

“The forensics data will be complete in a week.”

A statement would be released once the data had been analysed, he said.

Remulla also told Agence France-Presse that Philippines national police found a “trove of child pornography materials as well as a laptop” when it inspected Markle’s former home in Cebu.

“The PNP (Philippine National Police) will co-ordinate with their counterparts to locate and take appropriate legal actions against Mr Markle if found that there is sufficient evidence to charge him”, he said.

The Metropolitan Police confirmed that in 2019 it had passed a letter “containing a number of claims about alleged offending outside the United Kingdom” to Meghan and Harry, but did not share details with other law enforcement agencies.

The BBC and other media including the Telegraph, which said it had seen a copy, reported the note was written by Markle senior’s ex-wife, Roslyn Loveless, who had since died.

She is the mother of Thomas Markle Jr and Meghan’s other half-sibling, Samantha Markle, who has defended their father, telling the Mail on Sunday: “I believe this is a set-up.”

The Telegraph said the duchess was “upset and really frustrated” at the Met’s handling of the investigation. She said that she was shown a letter sent to Scotland Yard making “troubling” allegations against her father and was assured that they were being investigated.

The Met is “reviewing the handling of this matter”, including whether it needs to be referred to the police watchdog.

Thomas Markle Sr told the Mail on Sunday he’d “never had sex with anyone under the age of 18”. He said he was single he travelled to the Philippines at least twice and “slept with prostitutes”.

“I like Asian women but that is not a crime,” he said.

-with AAP