So everyone on the planet (who cared) knew that Josh was going to call Amy a “slut” on Wednesday night’s My Kitchen Rules.

After all, Channel Seven had promoted the hell out of it all week.

And he duly did so, almost as an aside.

“Thank you, slut,” he said, as she served him his food.

The audience was treated to shocked and disgusted looks around the table, presumably recorded at the time he said it and not later.

Josh tried to laugh it off.

“Amy joked with me. I wanted to joke back and I hope it was a joke that would break the entrée tension,” he explained.

Seven made sure no one missed the insult

What beggars believe is that no one around the table – not his fellow contestants or the judges – called him on what he said. Why didn’t judges Manu Feildel or Pete Evans extract some sort of apology?

Instead, it was left to a post-show interview for Della to lay it on Josh’s wife (also named Amy) for not saying something.

“If that was my husband, he would have copped an elbow to his groin if he had said that,” she told teammate Tully.

Why didn’t Della say something at the time?

Of course, everyone has, at times, said inappropriate things to friends in an unguarded moment.  But Josh, these are not your friends and you are on national television!

Amy was clearly upset by the comment. Photo: Channel Seven

If you give producers a gem like that, they will naturally promote it as hard as they can to attract controversy.

And there’s no point, as you did afterwards on the Kyle and Jackie O Show, belting the producers for chasing an after-show interview.  Any contestant who’s been on a reality show longer than five minutes will know that these are part of the deal and offer a chance to reflect on what was said.

Scuttling back to a hotel room to avoid the camera was never going to fly.

Amy – the contestant, not Josh’s wife – looked shocked and upset by what he said.  And yet she too is a producers’ dream – but for all the right reasons.

She and her brother Tyson (‘Mr Angry’ who has now turned into ‘Mr Nice and Quiet’) cooked amazing, adventurous food on Wednesday night.  Yep, remember this is a cooking show!

Amy just keeps the kitchen ship sailing, providing a seamless run of commentary happening while they cook – explaining what they are doing, what the potential trouble spots are and guiding Tyson through what he needs to do.

Amy (the other one) and Tyson continued to set the bar in the cooking part of the show. Photo: Channel Seven

One of their desserts – braised parsnip, with curried lemon curd and basil ice cream – was “the craziest dessert we’ve ever seen on MKR”, Manu said.

Pete, meanwhile, labelled their gin and tonic pear with sorbet as the “most exciting dish we’ve ever had on MKR – just a knockout”.

Maybe Seven could have promoted that instead. Or perhaps they really think their audience would prefer to watch a stupid Josh comment instead of brave cooking?