Interviewed today by People, last night's Top Chef casualty [spoiler alert!] Jeff McGinnes had some choice shit-talking words for head judge Tom Colicchio, before suggesting the show portrayed him as a shirt-a-phobic "sex object."

From People.com:

One constant criticism of your food was that there were too many components to each dish. Was that helpful or constructive?
 It was a criticism that night. It's something I thought about. [But] that dish is on my menu … [and I] served it to about 20 people today. They all loved it. I am not going to change that dish because Tom Colicchio said he didn't like it. It's a little shocking [that] I went home over that dish, but I'm not going to change the way I cook because of one person's opinion. My opinion about Tom Colicchio's food is that it's extremely boring. I've been to his restaurant. His chicken dish on his menu is roasted chicken with roasted potatoes, thyme and olive oil. If I want that, I'd go to my grandmother's house. That's just not exciting to me. I don't know who would go out and pay exorbitant amounts of money for that food. [...]

How do you think you'll be remembered on the show? What impression did you leave?
 I think the show used me as some kind of sex object. Every single show that I've ever seen, they have me with my shirt off in the beginning - which is kind of strange. I don't run around the house naked half the time like they portrayed me. It seems like a camera was always following me around trying to find me whenever I'm taking my clothes off to change in the morning or at night.

Surely McGinnes won't win much sympathy from Chef fans for gallingly calling out Colicchio for crimes against cutting-edge chicken preparation, but it's his assertion that he was pigeonholed by producers as some kind of culinary-world Fabio that will leave the far more bitter aftertaste. If there's one thing we want from our Top Chef pretty-boys, it's at least the pretense of humility. The only pretty they should be preoccupied with is in the precise angle a lamb shank juts out of their carefully heaped mound of cauliflower puree, or the way kumquat juice squirts out of Padma Lakshmi's mouth when she bites into their winning dessert challenge.

[Screengrab: queerinmysoup.wordpress.com]