Gregg Wallace has been accused of “inappropriate” behaviour in a string of allegations made by those who have worked with him on various TV shows.
The 60-year-old TV star has stepped back as presenter of MasterChef while the complaints of misconduct are externally reviewed by the hit cooking show’s production company.
Last week, BBC News reported Wallace is facing allegations from 13 people across a range of shows over a 17-year period, including former Newsnight host Kirsty Wark.
His lawyers say “it is entirely false that he engages in behaviour of a sexually harassing nature”, BBC News reported.
Wallace is “committed to fully cooperating throughout the process”, a statement from MasterChef’s production company Banijay UK said.
Here, we look at the full list of allegations that have been made against him...
“Lesbian jokes” and “highly inappropriate” comments
A woman who worked on Gregg Wallace’s Big Weekends in 2019, which aired on Channel 5, has told BBC News he was “fascinated” that she dated women and asked her the “logistics” of how it worked.
The woman, who BBC News has called Anna, also said he reportedly talked about sex, domination and spanking, which she said was “highly inappropriate”.
Wallace ‘went topless’ and ‘showed photos of woman in underwear’
Another woman who worked on Gregg Wallace’s Big Weekends, who BBC News has called Amanda, said Wallace allegedly showed her photos of a woman in her underwear while they were travelling in a car together.
She also recalled how he allegedly took off his top and said “let me give you a fashion show” in front of her and a male colleague when trying on outfits in his hotel room after filming had wrapped for the day.
Her colleague then left the room and she told BBC News: “It’s weird to be alone in a room with a topless stranger.”
Claims he said he ‘loves spanking’
A man who worked on Big Weekends as well as other travel shows between 2019 and 2022 alleged to BBC that News Wallace talked about threesomes with sex workers, and said he “loves spanking” on multiple occasions.
‘Stared at woman’s chest’
A woman who worked on the BBC Good Food Show in 2010 claimed to BBC News that Wallace stared at her chest.
‘Made sexually explicit remarks on MasterChef’
A man who worked on MasterChef in the mid-2000s claimed to BBC News that Wallace regularly made sexually explicit remarks while on set. He claimed the TV star once said a dish “tasted like his aunt’s vagina”.
‘Talked about sex life’ on MasterChef
A woman who worked on MasterChef in 2019 told BBC News Wallace talked about his sex life on set, and allegedly asked her whether her new boyfriend had a “nice bottom”.
Wallace accused of suggestive comments to colleague ‘unacceptable’ behaviour
Another woman, who BBC News has named Georgina, reportedly worked with Wallace on BBC’s Eat Well For Less TV show in 2019 and recalled him making comments on how his wife was only two years older than her.
She also told the outlet that after she went to his car to sort his parking ticket, he allegedly replied: “You can come to my car, but can you handle the fact everyone will think you just got off with a celebrity?”
Her colleague, named Lisa by BBC News, also recalled Wallace allegedly leaving a bathroom topless in front of them during a shoot and asking them to take his coffee order.
She told BBC News that his “behaviour isn’t acceptable”, adding: “To not only continue to put women in these scenarios but to continue publicly platforming him is a disgrace to our industry standards.”
Alleged ‘rape joke’ on Celebrity 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”.
Jonsson did not hear the joke but said that when another contestant walked off the set, she was told what had occurred.
The Swedish-born TV personality also posted a photo of her MasterChef apron to her Instagram story, writing: “Hopefully it will all come out in the wash” and another statement saying: “Plenty of crew on set who would not dare to speak up for fear of losing their jobs.”
‘Tart’ innuendo made to Celebrity MasterChef contestant
Actress Katy Brand has addressed the “awkward” moment Wallace told her he would “munch the living daylights out of your little tart” when she competed in Celebrity MasterChef in 2013.
After a video of the comment began recirculating online, she wrote on Instagram on Friday: “I took it as an innuendo-laden remark at the time, and I still see it that way now.
“My reaction on camera was one of shock and disbelief at such a crass and idiotic joke.”
She clarified she was not among those who have made an official complaint about Wallace, but applauded those who have.
Sir Rod Stewart accuses him of being ‘bully’ who ‘humiliated’ his wife
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”.
Wallace made ‘sexualised’ jokes, says BBC’s Kirsty Wark
BBC broadcaster Kirsty Wark has said Gregg Wallace twice told jokes of a “sexualised nature” when she was competing on Celebrity MasterChef in 2011, BBC News reported.
The former Newsnight host said the remarks were made in front of contestants and crew, and she felt they were “really, really in the wrong place”.
Charlotte Crosby describes him as ‘extremely unpleasant’
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.”
‘Told female colleague he wasn’t wearing underwear’
A woman who worked on Eat Well For Less with 2019 told the BBC Wallace had once told her he was not wearing boxers beneath his jeans.
Emma Kennedy claims Wallace “put his hands over” a photographer’s assistant’s bottom
Celebrity MasterChef 2012 champion Emma Kennedy claimed the TV presenter thought a comment he made about a woman’s bottom “was funny”.
The 57-year-old actor and author told Times Radio the former greengrocer “just doesn’t understand that some behaviour is completely inappropriate”.
In the incident, Kennedy claims Wallace “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.
Kirstie Allsopp thought she ‘might cry’ after lewd comment about Wallace’s sex life
Kirstie Allsopp has said she was “so embarrassed” she thought she “might cry” after the BBC star allegedly made a comment to her about his sex life.
Allsopp, 53, said the encounter took place several years ago in a performers’ lounge while she was filming a pilot for a TV quiz show alongside Wallace and his partner.
She told BBC Radio 4’s The World This Weekend: “I’d been chatting to her, she left the room and he (Wallace) made a reference to something they did in bed.
“You know that feeling when you’re so embarrassed that you think you might cry. You just feel kind of internally scarlet. I had that feeling and I always remembered it.”
‘Described a sex act he had performed on his wife while in a BBC lift with Vanessa Feltz’s friend’
Vanessa Feltz claimed he had described a sex act he had performed on his wife while in a BBC lift with her friend.
Speaking on her YouTube channel, Feltz recalled: “My friend did not know Greg Wallace. Had never met him before, and in the lift was a young girl who worked on another show.
“So the three of them were going up in the lift together and completely unprompted Greg Wallace described a sex act that he had performed on his then-wife that morning.
“So my friend had not met Greg Wallace before, hadn’t asked him about his sex life. Was simply taking him to participate in a BBC programme, and the young lady in the lift was just an innocent passenger.
“So this is something that a very close friend and associate of mine told me about at the time. What did anyone do about it? Of course, absolutely nothing.”
Melanie Sykes says he is the reason ‘she quit TV’
Former TV presenter Melanie Sykes has said working alongside Wallace on Celebrity MasterChef pushed her to decide to quit television.
Sykes, who competed on the show in 2021, alleged he greeted her by asking if models eat food, which she said she found “unprofessional” and laced with “ignorance and disrespect”.
The 54-year-old told the Daily Mail she found Wallace’s conduct on set “jaw-dropping”, and that he spent a lot of time “barking orders” in a way that made her want to quit the show.
Wallace reportedly told her that appearing on his show would do a lot for her career prospects - with Sykes saying the experience helped her decide to quit TV.
The broadcaster, known as the co-host of Today with Des and Mel in the early 2000s, said she raised an informal complaint about her time on the show.
She has previously written about her experience on the show in her autobiography last year, and in a recent YouTube video said she didn’t like Wallace “being around” because of his energy.
Response to allegations
A statement from Banijay UK said the BBC received complaints from individuals in relation to “historical allegations of misconduct while working with presenter Gregg Wallace on one of our shows”.
The production company said while the allegations were not raised with Banijay UK or their show producers, they would still be conducting an “immediate, external review to fully and impartially investigate”.
It added that Wallace would be “stepping away” from his hosting duties on MasterChef while the review is conducted and that the presenter is “committed to fully co-operating throughout the process”.
Wallace, a former Covent Garden greengrocer, is best known for co-presenting MasterChef alongside John Torode since 2005, as well as its spin-offs Celebrity MasterChef and MasterChef: The Professionals.
He was made an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2022 for his services to food and charity.
A BBC spokesman said it takes any issues raised with them “seriously” and “any behaviour which falls below the standards expected by the BBC will not be tolerated”.
A spokesperson for Channel 5, which broadcasts Big Weekends, also stated they take “any allegations of this nature extremely seriously” and have asked the show’s production company Rumpus Media to look into the claims.
Rumpus Media added: “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.”
However, Wallace came under fire over the weekend when he claimed that accusations of inappropriate behaviour against him came from "a handful of middle-class women of a certain age".
On Monday, he apologised over the comments, which were described by Downing Street on Monday as “inappropriate and misogynistic”.
In an apology issued on Instagram, the TV presenter said: "I want to apologise for any offence that I caused with my post yesterday and any upset I may have caused to a lot of people.
"I wasn't in a good headspace when I posted it, I've been under a huge amount of stress, a lot of emotion, I felt very alone, under siege yesterday when I posted it.
"It's obvious to me I need to take some time out, now, while this investigation is underway I hope you understand and I do hope you will accept this apology."
The Prime Minister’s spokesperson said: “The Culture Secretary spoke with the BBC leadership at the end of last week on this matter and wider workplace culture issues to seek assurances that there are robust processes in place to deal with complaints.
“Clearly the comments we have seen from the individual over the weekend were completely inappropriate and misogynistic.
“More broadly the BBC is conducting an independent review into workplace culture which must deliver clear and timely recommendations. It’s essential that staff and the wider public have confidence that the BBC takes these issues seriously.”
However, a pre-recorded episode of MasterChef: The Professionals aired on BBC One on Monday evening, with the BBC saying that the programme is "life-changing for the chefs that take part and the show is about more than one individual."
BBC viewers quickly took to social media to complain about the presenter’s appearance, with one MasterChef fan quipping that it was a “shame Gregg Wallace couldn't be edited out”. Another viewer described how it was “near impossible to watch the show”.
Huq said the continued broadcasting of the cooking show could be "triggering" for the women who have made complaints as she urged the BBC to send a "strong signal".
Huq, who is the MP for Ealing Central and Acton and a member of Parliament's Culture, Media and Sport Committee, told Radio 4's Today: "I think possibly there is an argument for pausing while this investigation takes its course, and maybe not airing it tonight."
"It could be massively triggering for the women involved - in fact to any woman involved in any type of similar incident," Ms Huq, who is the sister of former Blue Peter presenter Konnie Huq, added.
"To the casual viewer, if it’s on TV tonight, it looks like he got away with it. I think the BBC should send a strong signal."
Further Masterchef episodes are still scheduled to run on Tuesday and Thursday, while a Christmas special is also due to be broadcast later this month.
In defense of Wallace, The Telegraph’s restaurant critic William Sitwell said he was “astonished” at the allegations being made against the star in a comment piece in the newspaper.
He wrote: “Interesting, funny, exhausting and outrageous, is the Gregg I know. I gather his colleagues at MasterChef and the production company are as astonished as I am about the news.
“And I’m sure we all hope this force of nature will be back on set sooner than you can say, as his catchphrase goes, ‘buttery biscuit base’.”
