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Daniel McGuffey was a contestant on Season 5 of MasterChef. He ranked in 8th place.

Personality

Daniel was a passionate and determined cook, and took the competition very seriously. He was also shown to take risks, which could either succeed or blow up in his face. However, he also made petty, disrespectful, and insensitive comments against some of the other cooks behind their backs, with the most notable example being him making fun of Leslie. He was relatively quick to criticize others, was not afraid of throwing someone under the bus, and would never let go of minor grudges. He disliked Courtney and had short-lived feuds with Leslie and Cutter, the former due to his perceived cockiness and the latter due to his obnoxiousness and inability to take criticism, although his pettiness and uncalled for negative comments did get under their skin at some points. Despite that, he got along with virtually everyone else and developed friendships with Jaimee and Christian.

Season 5

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

Episode 4

Episode 5

Episode 6

Episode 7

Episode 8

Episode 9

Episode 10

Episode 11

Episode 12

Episode 13

Episode 18

Episode 19

Competition History

Week 2 In/In
Week 3 Low
Week 4 In/In
Week 5 No Pressure Test
Week 6 In/In
Week 7 In/Immune
Week 8 No Pressure Test
Week 9 In/In
Week 10 Win
Week 11 In/Low
Week 12 Win
Week 13 Low/Eliminated

Season 6

Episode 8

Daniel made an appearance as a former contestant in Season 6, where he appeared as a guest with fellow Season 5 contestants Ahran and Leslie at the MasterChef 100th Episode special event. He advised the contestants was to not overthink it, and told them to respect the great ingredients they had and their dish would shine.

Season 10

Episode 4

Daniel made a cameo appearance as a guest at the Season 10 Pool Party.

Post MasterChef

  • Daniel was a producer at Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment Inc, before doing freelance voiceover, design, and illustration work.

Trivia

  • He is tied with Christian for fewest wins out of any Top 10 contestant in their season, each of them winning 2 challenges
    • Of the two, Daniel only ever won team challenges.

Quotes

  • (About Leslie's blueberry pie) "Leslie nails a pie; He's been around for a while, so he probably knew Betty Crocker."
  • (About Leslie) "Nobody came into this with a preconceived notion that he was an asshole. He's proven that to us over time. Dude is an asshole."
  • Leslie: "I try and keep my mouth shut during challenges."
    Daniel: "When will you apply that to the rest of her life?"
  • "I don't think I've hurt anybody or made any enemies and I think that's working for me, except for Leslie, who's cackling right here because he doesn't know how to be a grown-up. Even though he's the oldest man here, he's a child. Otherwise, I think I have the respect of everybody else in this kitchen."
  • (About Cutter) "Cutter's just sitting there shooting himself in the foot. Why would you mouth off to Joe? And why would you have anything to say other than 'yes, sir'?"
  • "So I'm going to tell you something. First thing I was ever really into was baseball. I love the Babe, so I'm swinging, I'm swinging, I'm calling it. This one's going out of the park, it's going right towards that fucker (Leslie) right there."
  • (To Cutter) "I NEED YOU ON THE GRILL! THE WHOLE TIME I'VE NEEDED YOU ON THE GRILL!"
  • (About Courtney while picking teams) "How do I tell Courtney, 'never not in a million years'."
  • (After being eliminated) "I feel devastated, but it's not the end. I made tremendous sacrifices, but I'm proud of myself for taking a chance, y'know my whole life I've been afraid to really gamble. MasterChef is the the push, the motivation I need to start taking more chances. On the bigger things, I can't wait to see what's next."

Gallery

Season 5

Season 6

Season 10

External links

References

MasterChef U.S. Season 5
Judges
Gordon RamsayGraham ElliotJoe Bastianich
Contestants
Francis BiondiWhitney BrayCutter BrewerElizabeth CauvelAhran ChoLeslie GilliamsChristian GreenGordon HoustonJordan KaminskiCourtney LapresiAstrid LaveniaFrancis LeggeElise MayfieldDaniel McGuffeyWillie MikeKira NovakVictoria ScrogginsStephani Syfax-ShepherdChristine SilversteinTyler ViarsJaimee VitoloDan Wu
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