MasterChef presenter Gregg Wallace is battling to save his BBC career after he was accused of sexist behaviour and offensive sexual comments towards staff and guests.
Wallace has stepped away from the hit cooking show and has said he will co-operate with an review carried out by MasterChef producer Banijay UK, after more than a dozen people made claims about the star.
His lawyers have said it is entirely false that he engages in behaviour of a sexually harassing nature.
In new allegations to emerge over the weekend, the star was accused of asking for the personal phone numbers of female production staff and undressing in front of women working on his programmes.
TV production staff who worked with Wallace on BBC and Channel 5 shows told The i Paper that he made sexualised jokes and was rude to female staff.
One said they had warned him to be “more careful” after he made crude jokes on set. Another said he was “misogynistic” and brought a junior crew member to tears.
The 60-year-old presenter fired back personally at his accusers on Instagram on Sunday. He said the mounting accusations have come from “middle-class women of a certain age”, before claiming “it isn’t right”.
Wallace also suggested that women he had worked with had made lewd sexual comments. “In 20 years, over 20 years of television, can you imagine how many women, female contestants on MasterChef, have made sexual remarks, or sexual innuendo?”
The presenter also claimed “absolutely none” of the people he had worked with on his shows had made a complaint about him.
‘Unbelievably rude and obnoxious’
The i Paper spoke to several former colleagues of Wallace about what it was like working with the star on both BBC and Channel 5 programmes.
One person who worked with him on Channel 5’s Big Weekends with Gregg Wallace in 2021, produced by Rumpus Media, claimed that he treated women dismissively.
“I remember him being really unbelievably rude and obnoxious through the entire shoot,” a member of the travel show’s production team said. “He was extremely rude and misogynistic towards the female crew and some of the female contributors.”
They added: “He would dismiss directions from the female producers. He brought one of the most junior crew members to tears with his rude behaviour.”
However, someone else who worked with him on Big Weekends with Gregg Wallace said that while the star could be demanding, they did not see him acting dismissively toward women.
“He’s a very intense guy. Some people found him quite difficult to deal with. He was attention-seeking, narcissistic. He’s got a pretty big ego. But talent can be like that,” they said.
They added: “He could be quite confrontational at times. He would like things done his way. But he’s not a nasty guy. I didn’t see him treat women any differently. I quite liked how open and honest he was.”
A television producer who worked with Wallace for several years on the BBC’s Inside the Factory programme said that the presenter had a “dubious sense of humour”, which prompted a friendly warning.
“There were sexualised jokes – but it was jokey, boys’ banter, old-school innuendo. Nothing nasty I can remember. I had to take him aside and tell him, ‘Gregg, you have to be a bit more careful’. And he was appalled at the idea he’d upset people. Because he’s a kind person.”
The producer defended his behaviour, saying there was nothing misogynistic about Wallace’s treatment of women on set.
“There was never any sense of inappropriate sexual approaches to female staff. He can be fool who goes over the top with his jokes but he’s always been very respectful of the women in my team. I’m really sad about it all.”
Allegations made by celebrities
Former Newsnight host Kirsty Wark is one of the 13 people to accuse Wallace of making inappropriate sexual comments.
Wark told BBC News that on two occasions Wallace told stories and jokes of a “sexualised nature” in front of contestants and crew when she was competing on Celebrity MasterChef in 2011.
She said she feels strongly that the comments were “really, really in the wrong place”.
Sir Rod Stewart took to Instagram following the accusations on Thursday, accusing Wallace of “humiliating” his wife Penny Lancaster on Celebrity MasterChef in 2021.
The veteran singer described the TV presenter as a “ill-mannered bully”, signing the statement off: “Karma got ya. Sir Rod Stewart”.
Geordie Shore star Charlotte Crosby, who appeared on Celebrity MasterChef this year, commented on Sir Rod’s post writing: “He was extremely unpleasant to me when I was on MasterChef.”
Model Ulrika Jonsson told The Telegraph that when she competed on Celebrity MasterChef in 2017, Wallace allegedly had to apologise after making a “rape joke”, which caused another female contestant to become “really distressed”.
The storm faced by Wallace began on Thursday when BBC News detailed claims of misconduct from 13 people, across five different programmes, dating back to 2005.
Allegations include a claim that the star took his top off in front of a female worker on Gregg Wallace’s Big Weekend, and told a junior female colleague on the BBC’s Eat Well For Less that he was not wearing any boxer shorts under his jeans.
The Sun reported allegations from two women that Wallace had groped them. Celebrity MasterChef contestant Emma Kennedy said on Threads that she had seen Wallace grope a camera assistant in 2012, and complained to the production company.
She later told Times Radio that Wallace “just doesn’t understand that some behaviour is completely inappropriate”.
In the incident, Kennedy claims he “put his hands over” a photographer’s assistant’s bottom and said “cor”.
Speaking about the aftermath of the incident, she said: “It was like a combination of things, I think initially I was just agog that he felt comfortable enough to do that to a woman in front of another woman.
“But I think, and I am going to make this distinction, I don’t think he did it as an act of sexual aggression. I think he did it because he thought it was funny.
“And I can only speak about my experience with Gregg and although I saw quite a lot of inappropriate behaviour, I never sort of felt, ok, you’re a sexual predator. I never thought he was evil.
“But what I did think was that he just doesn’t understand that some behaviour is completely inappropriate. And I said to him at the time, ‘you can’t do that stuff, Gregg’.
“And it sort of went in one ear and out the other, I think.”
She claimed she told a number of people at MasterChef, including a producer, about the incident but said she had “no idea” what happened next.
The Sunday Times reported that BBC executive Kate Phillips raised concerns that Wallace’s behaviour was “unacceptable and cannot continue”.
The apparent intervention came after broadcaster and former Celebrity MasterChef contestant Aasmah Mir complained about inappropriate comments during filming in 2017.
‘Nothing was done’
The Sunday Telegraph reported that producer Georgia Harding, who worked on MasterChef between 2014 and 2015 and later Eat Well for Less, claimed she raised concerns about behaviour while working on the latter show.
She alleged the presenter undressed in front of colleagues and made inappropriate sexual jokes, claiming there was “an acceptance” of his behaviour and “nothing was done”.
A former MasterChef contestant told Sky News that the claims made against Wallace are only the “tip of the iceberg” and said he was horrified by the “toxic environment”.
Meanwhile, Wallace was also accused of asking for the personal phone numbers of female staff in a letter that Dawn Elrick, a producer and director, said she sent to the BBC in 2022.
Having received claims via her Shit Men in TV Have Said to Me Instagram account, the letter also claimed that female production staff were asked to speak to Wallace while he was topless.
A BBC spokesperson declined to comment on the claims made to The i Paper. The broadcaster said it had “robust processes” to deal with complaints and added it “will always listen if people want to make us aware of something directly”.
They also said it would be “inappropriate” to comment during Banijay UK’s ongoing investigation.
Banijay UK declined to comment on claims made to The i Paper. It has appointed law firm Lewis Silkin to carry out “an immediate, external review to fully and impartially investigate” the allegations.
A Channel 5 spokesperson said they treated “any allegations of this nature extremely seriously” and had asked Rumpus Media “to look into these historical claims”.
They added: “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.”
A Rumpus Media spokesperson said it did not tolerate “inappropriate behaviour on our productions”, adding: “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.”
Wallace’s representative has been approached for comment. Channel 5 has been approached for comment.
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