It was an open secret, as is almost everything that happens behind the scenes of television: the host of the British MasterChef, Gregg Wallace, harassed contestants and female colleagues, engaged in touching, and frequently resorted to sexual jokes and misogynistic comments before, during, and after the recordings of the popular show.
Wallace, 60, has stepped back from MasterChef while the investigation by the production company Banijay UK is ongoing. The BBC has suspended the airing of the two Christmas specials. The flood of accusations is growing by the day, starting from the initial 13 incidents.
Wallace himself defended himself by downplaying the accusations and claiming that 13 incidents are nothing, considering the 4,000 contestants who have participated in the show over 17 years. He also stated that complaints against him came from "middle-class women of a certain age", although he later had to retract his words (after direct intervention from the Minister of Culture, Lisa Nandy) and apologize.
Singer Rod Stewart joined the public lynching of Wallace, crucified by the British tabloids, citing the disrespectful treatment his wife, Penny Lancaster, received duringMasterChef Celebrity three years ago: "You humiliated my wife on your show, but they cut that scene, didn't they? You are a chubby, bald, rude bully. Bad karma caught up with you."
Former presenter Melanie Sykes has acknowledged that Wallace's "rude and unethical behavior" is the reason she left television. And Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark has confessed that she became "tired of his sexual jokes that made people uncomfortable" during the show recordings. Presenter Aggie MacKenzie also described him as "a dinosaur who has been allowed to behave shamelessly."
The most direct accusations have come from production workers like Lisa (pseudonym) who claims that Wallace pressed his hip and penis against her during a recording in a supermarket and mockingly said to her, "You liked that, didn't you?" Another woman identified as Anna stated that Wallace asked for her attention in his dressing room to adjust his tie and greeted her with "his pants halfway down and with pubic hair and the top of his penis visible."
A third woman confessed how the presenter blatantly touched her buttocks in front of others in an elevator: "It was disgusting and horrible." A sign language interpreter also revealed another incident when Wallace asked her during a live show, "Do you have to sign everything I say?" And when she said "yes," the presenter replied, "Big boobs, sexy butt."
The latest to join the accusations is Shannon Kyle, the writer who assisted Wallace with his autobiography Life on a plate. Kyle claims that the presenter made "disgusting and sickening sexual comments" and displayed "predatory behavior" on several occasions, including once when he put his hand on her thigh while driving his sports car.
Gregg Wallace, who was knighted in 2022 as a Knight of the Order of the British Empire, had his first contact with the food world selling vegetables as a young man at a stall in Covent Garden. He later founded his own company and in 2010 opened the restaurant Wallace & Co and later Gregg's Bar & Grill. He has been married four times (his first marriage lasted six weeks) and has three children.
MasterChef co-hostJohn Torode served as best man at his last wedding to Anne-Marie Sterpini. Torode has acknowledged that the recent news about his TV partner "have been truly disturbing." "But there is an ongoing investigation," he pointed out, "and I hope they respect my silence."