A HALTER dress with a plunging neckline is not something you would wear on a Channel 8 cooking show.

At least, that’s what some viewers thought after watching Joanne Peh, 26, whip up her favourite dishes in an episode of 3-Plus-1 recently.

MediaCorp forums were abuzz after the show, with one netizen, Bezxzer, commenting: “Seriously, it was the dress that was making people drool... not the food.”

Another netizen, Bond, felt Joanne’s outfit was “so distracting”.

Lianhe Wanbao quoted one netizen saying: “This is a cooking show, not some swimsuit pageant for her to show off her figure.

“She may have a great body, but her dressing was just very inappropriate.”

In the culinary programme, which started in December last year, artistes are given $20 to prepare three dishes and a soup for their loved ones.

Every episode pits two celebrities against each other, and three judges will decide whose food tastes better.

In one particular episode, which aired on 24 Feb, Joanne, dressed in a low-cut halter-neck print dress, won in the cooking battle against actress Dawn Yeoh.

In an e-mail interview with The New Paper, Joanne defended her choice of wardrobe.

She said: “As it would have been hot during cooking, I wanted to wear something feminine and casual.

“I also didn’t want my outfit to obstruct or cause discomfort during cooking.”

But she denied that what she was wearing was a bikini top, adding that she would have been “out of my mind” to wear something like that on a cooking show.

She said she was surprised when told of the public backlash because the production team on set had complimented her on her outfit.

If the team felt that her dress was “lewd”, she said that they would have asked her to change it.

Wrong apron?

She also pointed out that she was expected to be given a “full frontal apron”, not the half apron that she ended up with on the show.

Full-length apron or not, she insisted that she wasn’t “flashing any inappropriate part of my body” or “flaunting or exposing myself”.

“It is common for the public to have a personal stake in the way we look and I apologise if the outfit offended anyone,” she said.

Friends and family also agreed that she looked good in the dress.

Joanne, who is known as one of Caldecott Hill’s seven princesses, first made the news over her ample assets in last year’s hit volleyball drama, Beach.Ball.Babes.

VIEW PHOTO GALLERY

She stunned onlookers at Tiong Bahru Market – with her noticeably bumped-up assets – when she was there to film the series last May, together with co-stars Jesseca Liu and Jade Seah.

In that episode, the girls, who are part of a volleyball team, lose a bet and are made to strip to their bikinis outside a wet market as a forfeit.

Her cleavage got viewers wondering if the slim actress had gone under the knife.

This speculation was a big change for Joanne, whose image is often labelled as fresh and sweet.

The sex kitten label was often given to actresses like Fiona Xie and AnnKok.

Joanne was even once voted by netizens as the flattest of them all among MediaCorp actresses.

When asked about her chest size then, Joanne told The New Paper it was because of hormones. “Have your period, lor!” she said.

She claimed her breasts always swell up one cup size bigger when it’s “that time of the month for me”.

She also denied that she had done breast implants.

“It’s something I can’t accept and I feel I don’t need,” she said.

When asked this same question again in this interview, she stood by her claim.

She even joked: “Given the number of hours I put in for work throughout the year, the doctor will have to perform the surgery at my house while I am sleeping.

“For all that money and pain, I would want to have them much much bigger!”

Chameleon

Jokes aside, she expressed her desire to be versatile with her image.

Like a chameleon, she believes she can be “sporty, boyish, girl-next-door, womanly or sexy”.

However, she confessed that she is currently moving onto a different stage in her life.

She said: “I’m getting in touch with my femininity and am really just a girl slowly stepping into womanhood.”

But she accepts that “such comments” are part and parcel of a celebrity’s life.

She explained: “People will have something to say on just about everything from our physical appearances to our personal lives, to the work thatweproduce.

“I believe some viewers have different obsessions for reasons they themselves might not even know. Unfortunately, we can’t please everyone.”

This article was first published in The New Paper.