Fifteen years ago, Marcello said yes to Come Dine With Mein search of something new. He couldn’t have predicted how dramatically it would change his life – for the worst.
“You’re the most hated man in England” – the words were sent to Marcello Marino’s phone while he was thousands of miles away from home, on holiday in Miami, enjoying the sun and unaware of what was unfolding in England. The message came from his employee, a stark warning that the television appearance he had agreed to would lead to a torrent of online hate. Even then, Marcello did not yet grasp how playing a rude personality on TV would result in threats against his life.
“She said, ‘Did you know that you’re all over the newspapers?’” he recalls. “I said, ‘No, why?’ Apparently I was the most hated person in England. And I didn’t realise.” Marcello tried to understand how it had happened, how a single television appearance had triggered something he could not control or escape.
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Marcello appeared on Come Dine With Me in Kent in 2011 where he presented himself as confrontational, outspoken and deliberately provocative – a contestant who questioned everything from hygiene to haircuts, and, watching the show, he appeared to take pleasure in unsettling his fellow diners. In one scene, he claimed to find a hair in his food and immediately suggested it was a public hair – one of the key moments he is known for.
While his persona was entertaining, it quickly earned him a reputation as one of the show’s most hated contestants – something that would follow him far beyond the dinner table. But before the show Marcello lived what he describes as a normal life, married and raising a family. He ran a hair salon in Ramsgate, Kent.
In early 2010, he decided to put two provocative posters on either side of the outside of his salon, using them to showcase his wife, “Her cleavage was showing, nothing pornographic and it was 7 by 4, either side of my building,” he told the Mirror.
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The local council disagreed after receiving complaints and warned him to take the posters down or face court action. Marcello challenged the decision, and as the dispute escalated, it caught the attention of the press. “In the end, I didn’t take it down. I had a meeting and they said, as long as she’s not naked, you can go ahead with it but I had to fight for it,” he says.
At the time, Marcello leaned into the moment. He spoke proudly about the posters, praised his wife’s appearance and suggested the images offered something more bold and lively, during a difficult economic period. Marcello believes it was this publicity that led producers from Come Dine With Me to reach out.
“The producers from Come Dine With Me said they wanted to meet me,” he says. “They asked if I’d be happy with being the character of a rude person and I said yeah, that’s fine.” Marcello says the producers were clear about what they wanted and what was expected. “I did lean into it. I wasn’t being my normal self all the time, I knew it was TV, and I played up to the cameras and the character. I thought people would see it as entertainment, not as the real me.”
“I’m normal, and I tell people the truth,” he says. “But with TV, I knew when they interviewed me, they said if you act like that, you have to keep going.” And Marcello felt the implication that someone else could replace him, if he didn’t commit completely to the persona. “It’s pressure,” he explains. “They’re saying there are other people – if you don’t act that way, we have someone else.”
When filming began, Marcello was nervous, saying: “I tried to be myself but you’re in a unfamiliar environment with cameras, schedules, producers and pressure to perform.”
When the show first came out, he truly enjoyed watching back – until the public discourse began. “I didn’t realise what a good actor I was,” he says. “When the camera wasn’t rolling, I said listen, I’m going to be really bad, that’s not me and when the camera went on, I went berserk. But no, I enjoyed it. It made good TV. In the streets, when I went out after the show, people were really nice to me,” he says. “Everybody recognised me – they still do.”
But online, the reaction went far beyond criticism, descending into abuse that left him failing for his safety. “I had death threats,” Marcello said. “It upset me and I kept worrying about it going out of my house and I was scared, people knew where I lived.”
His salon phone rang constantly. When he answered, he was met with swearing and abuse. “I thought what’s going on and I realised the show was on, the show is being replayed again. That’s when I knew every time they played it, people go mad and keep phoning me up and being silly. Every time it’s on they were bombarding me,” he says. “In the end I asked them [ channel 4 ] to take it off – I wish I didn’t have to, but I couldn’t handle it.”
But it all felt disproportionate to the programme itself he felt. Come Dine With Me is a light-hearted dinner party show that Marcello says he never believed would stretch beyond a few laughs and a fleeting moment on television. At the time his life remained firmly on his salon, his family and he could never have foreseen that a stint on reality TV could spill into his personal life.
“It was unbelievable. You just didn’t expect it. You don’t expect going to TV and then afterwards you get some death threats,” he said. “Honestly, it was just meant to be a laugh, I didn’t go in thinking it would change my life or make me famous.”
Yet 15 years later, the echo of that brief moment still lingers on and people still recognise him from the show. “Some people joke about it, some are kind, and some are cruel. What people don’t see is that you live with that label long after the programme is forgotten. It sticks to you in ways that affect work, confidence, and how people treat you.”
Looking back now, Marcello wishes he had more support from the broadcaster, especially after the death threats he received. “The duty of care shouldn’t stop when filming ends, people go back to real lives and suddenly they’re dealing with public judgement, online abuse, and labels that can follow them for years. There should be real support after filming, not just during it. I know how long the impact can last. One edit, one label, one moment can follow you for years,” he said. “I was constantly thinking what could happen – I’ve got children.”
The Mirror reached out to Channel 4, who denied Marcello’s claims. “We strongly refute that anyone taking part would be told to behave like a character, the show is about a celebration of people – that is absolutely not true,” a spokesperson for Channel 4 said
