What happened to Josh from MasterChef? Remembering the season 3 runner-up

His run on season 3

• The season — aired on Fox from 4 June to 10 September 2012, judged by Gordon Ramsay, Graham Elliot, and Joe Bastianich, with 18 finalists in the kitchen.
• The comeback — Marks was eliminated mid-season and cooked his way back into the competition, which made him an easy contestant to root for.
• The final — he lost to Christine Hà, the show's first blind contestant, finishing as runner-up.

Cast-mates remembered him as the one helping others even when he didn't have to — famously folding tortellini alongside Hà during a pressure test he wasn't even part of.

What happened after the show

Marks was diagnosed with bipolar disorder around the time the finale aired, according to his family. In July 2013 he was arrested after an altercation with police at the University of Chicago and charged with aggravated battery; a court ordered a mental-health assessment that August. Days before his death, doctors diagnosed him with schizophrenia.

Josh Marks died in Chicago on 11 October 2013, at 26. The Cook County medical examiner ruled his death a suicide.

In a statement reported by CNN, his family said that behind his huge smile, Josh had been in "the battle of his life fighting mental illness."

His family and his lawyer, Lisa Butler, pointed to the difficulty of accessing intensive mental-health treatment as a factor in his death. In the months before he died, Marks had himself been working with the Make A Sound Project, an organisation supporting people struggling with suicidal thoughts.

How he's remembered

The tributes were immediate. Gordon Ramsay wrote on Twitter that he'd "heard the devastating news" and sent his thoughts to the family, while the show's official statement called Marks "a wonderful person and an incredible talent". Christine Hà, who went on to open acclaimed restaurants in Houston, has spoken warmly of him in the years since.