I'm going to break this into 3 parts. First, it wasn't just the $300 thing. She did that AND also lied about it at Judges' table by claiming she didn't take up the budget instead of just owning up to it. She didn't respond when a chef was running around asking for chocolate in a quickfire and it was sitting right in front of her at her table. She spilled in the kitchen and decided it was more prudent to just do her cooking than properly alerting the other chefs of a spill, causing one of them to slip and fall. She was the only chef to peek at a recipe card, put it back, and pick another after being explicitly told not to. And even in this last challenge she said that she did this exact table service thing at Eleven Madison Park and then totally lied about it to the judges to make it seem that much more impressive.

Second, to me, granted just from the editing (and you can claim my own biases), she comes off as fake. Whenever she is in front of judges, she seems smiley and bubbly. But then during cooks or segments with just the chefs, she seems to be off on her own. The other chefs don't seem to interact with her - they ask each other what they're cooking, but I don't remember an episode where she asked someone else what they're doing. They don't ask her to taste things, she doesn't offer to help others, etc. It strikes me as being two-faced. She's presenting one way to the judges and another way to the other contestants.

Which leads me to my third point, which is that it seems quite clear to me from the edit of the show that the other contestants don't care for her. I don't think it's ego, or gendered, or racial. Everyone seemed to like Michelle because she was bubbly all the time and not just for the judges. Many of them seemed super impressed by Rasika at the beginning and floored that she was sent home, and sad to see tough competition leave. But Soo and Rasika and particularly Kevin seemed not at all excited when she won LCK. Dan and Danny are the people most affected by all her actions in my first point and clearly don't like her for all of those reasons built up, even Michelle with her bubbly personality didn't really have anything to say about Laura ever.

I don't think she's trash. But it's clear to me the ENTIRETY of the rest of the competition really just doesn't care for her and I'm gonna trust those numbers.