Riyadh Khalaf could hardly sleep before appearing on 'Celebrity MasterChef'.
Riyadh Khalaf
The YouTuber has admitted to being overcome by nerves before going on the BBC show, meaning he was only able to get two hours of sleep prior to taking on his first challenge.
He explained: "It felt like I was getting married the next day or was being sentenced to be executed the next day. It was tough!"
Riyadh has been a 'MasterChef' fan since he was just 14, and meeting the show's presenters, John Torode and Gregg Wallace, was a "wonderful" experience for the internet star.
He told RadioTimes.com: "They say don't meet your heroes, but they were absolutely wonderful.
"It's always intimidating even when they're nice because you're on 'MasterChef', but I think the lovely thing about this show is there's not ever any moments where they're actively trying to make you feel bad or feel stupid.
"It's tonnes of encouragement mixed in with a load of honesty. And the whole thing is when you get bad feedback over what will be a bad dish, what they want to see is ... do you take what they've told you into account and then come back with something better?"
Riyadh filmed the show before the coronavirus lockdown was introduced.
And he's admitted it's proven to be a source of inspiration over recent months.
He said: "We filmed this before COVID and it's been a really horrible and tough few months for all of us, but I've had this joy of having this little gorgeous nugget of joy in the horizon that's going to come up, and that's been kind of motivating me, because I knew that at the end of it 'Celebrity MasterChef' was going to air!"