MasterChef TV host Gregg Wallace has been accused of “highly inappropriate” behaviour including making “lesbian jokes constantly”, regularly discussing spanking and threesomes, and making sexually explicit comments while filming programmes, multiple sources have said.
Further details of the allegations facing the TV host have emerged since the announcement on Thursday that he was stepping away from his role after the BBC received complaints about alleged misconduct.
In the hours after the news, Wallace, who has presented the BBC One cooking show alongside John Torode since 2005, thanked his supporters in a video on Instagram, in which he said: “I would like to thank all the people getting in touch, reaching out and showing their support. It’s good of you – thank you very much.”
Wallace is facing allegations of inappropriate sexual comments from 13 people who worked with him across a range of shows over a 17-year period, according to an investigation by BBC News. The presenter’s lawyers have said the suggestion that Wallace engages in behaviour of a sexually harassing nature was entirely false.
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One woman who worked with Wallace on the travel show Gregg Wallace’s Big Weekends in 2019 told BBC News that Wallace made “lesbian jokes constantly”, was “fascinated” by the fact she dated women, and asked her the “logistics” of her relationships.
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Other women, who worked on the same programme in 2019, said the TV personality regularly talked about sex and about domination and spanking. “[It] was highly inappropriate,” she said. Another woman said Wallace had showed her photos of a woman in her underwear on his phone. On another occasion, she alleged that while filming in Italy he had shown her his outfits for the next day in his hotel room, had taken his top off and said “let me give you a fashion show”.
She said a male colleague had initially been in the room, but had left. She recalled the Millwall tattoo on Wallace’s chest, saying she found the experience very uncomfortable. “It’s weird to be alone in a room with a topless stranger,” she told BBC News.
Other allegations of inappropriate behaviour against Wallace include:
- A man who worked on Big Weekends and other travel shows between 2019 and 2022 said Wallace talked about threesomes with sex workers and said he “loves spanking” multiple times a day.
- A woman who worked on MasterChef in 2019 said Wallace talked about his sex life and had asked if her boyfriend had a nice bottom.
- A woman on the BBC Good Food Show in 2010 said Wallace stared at her chest.
- A woman on Eat Well for Less in 2019 said Wallace told her he wasn’t wearing any boxer shorts under his jeans.
- A man who worked on MasterChef in 2005-06 said Wallace regularly made sexually explicit comments on set. He said Wallace once said a dish tasted like his aunt’s vagina, and on another occasion had asked a female runner if she put her finger up her boyfriend’s bottom.
A Channel 5 spokesperson, which airs Big Weekends, said the broadcaster had asked Rumpus, the production company which makes the show, to look into the claims. “We take any allegations of this nature extremely seriously,” they said. “The health and wellbeing of everyone involved in our productions is very important to us and we want all of our productions to be safe and secure places for people to work.”
Rumpus said: “We do not tolerate inappropriate behaviour on our productions. Our comprehensive duty of care processes were in place during production of these series and any matters raised would have been investigated in accordance with these.”
On Thursday MasterChef’s production company, Banijay UK, said it had launched an investigation after the BBC received complaints about Wallace’s behaviour and said the 60-year-old was “committed to fully co-operating throughout the process”.
The presenter Kirsty Wark, who was a Celebrity MasterChef contestant in 2011, told BBC News that on two occasions during early morning filming Wallace told stories and jokes of a “sexualised nature” in front of contestants and crew. She said she felt strongly that the comments were “really, really in the wrong place”.
Rod Stewart, whose wife, Penny Lancaster, appeared on Celebrity MasterChef in 2021, used his Instagram account on Thursday to comment on Wallace’s break from the show. Stewart called Wallace a “tubby, bald-headed, ill-mannered bully” and said the presenter had humiliated his wife.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Friday, the former BBC One controller Lorraine Heggessey, who was behind the high-profile sackings of Richard Bacon and Angus Deayton, said broadcasters and programme-makers had to “stop treating the presenter as if they’re a special case”.
She said: “They are just one person in a huge team that gets a show on air, and they are neither more special nor less special than anybody else. Somehow we’ve got a culture ... of pandering to those who are in front of camera and letting them get away with the kind of behaviour that other people in teams wouldn’t be allowed to get away with.”
A BBC spokesperson said: “We are always clear that any behaviour which falls below the standards expected by the BBC will not be tolerated. Where an individual is contracted directly by an external production company we share any complaints or concerns with that company and we will always support them when addressing them.” – Guardian
