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This is the disease that took away Jordi Roca’s speech
Jordi Roca attended the final of ‘MasterChef Celebrity 8’ last night, where his severe aphonia caught the eye
The chef has acknowledged, on his social networks, the difficult process he went through to be able to recover, slightly, the thread of his voice
The chef is the youngest of the Roca brothers, famous all over the world for their restaurant El Celler de Can Roca.
Jordi Roca has established himself in the culinary field as one of the most renowned chefs of recent times. He is considered the last Catalan par excellence and his career has earned him awards and renowns such as the ‘food hero’ given by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), among many others. Together with his two brothers, he founded the restaurant El Celler de Can Roca, which has been ranked as the best in the world for two consecutive years (2013 and 2014).
His relevance in the field goes so far that he has visited, on numerous occasions, programs on the small screen to delight viewers with his knowledge in front of the stove. And this is exactly what happened last night, when the youngest of the Roca brothers attended, as a guest, the final of the eighth edition of MasterChef Celebrity. There, his task was to explain the preparation of the dish that the finalists, Laura Londoño and Álvaro Muñoz Escassi, would have to recreate to win the prize. But, beyond participating as an expert in the field, his presence caught the attention of more than one because of his visible vocal cord disease.
Jordi Roca was forced to whisper, both to the jury and to the candidates, the different steps that had to be followed to achieve the perfect result of the menu on display, due to the persistent aphonia from which he has suffered for almost a decade. This inconvenience when it comes to speaking is linked to the cervical dystonia with which he was diagnosed years ago. It is a rare neurological disease that he himself explained on his social networks, which directly affects muscle tone, especially in the neck area.
“As many of you know, for 7 years I became totally dysphonic, I lost my voice completely. During that time I’ve had voice peaks that have come and gone, but I’m getting a little better, I’m improving my phonation, above all I’ve relearned to speak effortlessly,” he explained on his official Instagram profile. Visibly moved, the chef assured that every effort has a reward and that he had worked hard to recover the sound of his voice: “Believe it or not, when something like what happened to me happens to you, it is very difficult to get back on track with your voice.”
According to the definition offered by ABC Medical Center, “cervical dystonia is a painful neurological disorder that causes muscle contractions in the neck involuntarily, causing the head to move forward or backward or turn sideways.” In Jordi Roca’s case, this disease affected his vocal cords, which could not perform the necessary movements to verbalize correctly.
Cervical dystonia is part of the group of “rare diseases” as it only affects one in 25,000 people. In fact, it is difficult to find a clear diagnosis at first, so it requires many medical tests to find the result. According to several studies, it is more common to see male patients than women.
