In the past 72 hours, Gregg Wallace has been accused of impropriety by 13 women, according to an investigation led by BBC News, which details allegations of inappropriate behaviour and sexual misconduct over a vast 17-year period.
The accusations range from making inappropriate sexual comments to making sexualised jokes; asking a contestant who happened to be lesbian about her sex life; and walking into a dressing room with nothing but a sock on his penis. To name but a few.
Crucially, though, the BBC News investigation stopped short of any criminal accusation such as sexual assault or harassment. But since those revelations came to light, more public figures, from Ulrika Johnson to Vanessa Feltz, have come out to denounce Wallace and his past behaviour.
More recently, a former MasterChef contestant from 2008, Dr Kate Tomas, was less reserved, accusing unequivocally in a recent Tik Tok that Wallace not only sexually harassed her, but that he was “a racist piece of shit”.
@drkatetomas Greg Wallace sexually harassed #METOO on #masterchef in 2008 #gregwallace #greggwallace
♬ original sound - Dr Kate Tomas
Dr Tomas’ allegations stem from nearly 17 years ago, when she claims she reported Wallace to the BBC.
If these allegations and reports are true, the question is: how could the BBC let this go on for so long, and fail to protect female contestants and production team members from Wallace’s predatory, inappropriate behaviour?
The company which produces MasterChef – Banijay UK – is conducting an investigation and has said that Wallace is cooperating with them.
For a sense of scale in these allegations, we don’t yet know if the recent glut of voices from past Celebrity MasterChef contestants are included in the 13 women the BBC News investigation outlines. But if Dr Tomas is right, it seems apparent that the BBC knew about the claims against Wallace since at least 2008.
In 2012, actor and author Emma Kennedy, who won the Celebrity MasterChef competition, alleged that Wallace was sexually suggestive and inappropriate with a young camera assistant. Kennedy notes: “They knew then. They knew before then and they’ve known since.”
In 2017 and again in 2018, reports from yet more Celebrity MasterChef contestants, including Aasmah Mir, also suggest unacceptable behaviour by Wallace, with the Guardian reporting that Mir sent an email to the then head of unscripted programmes for the BBC stating: “Should anything happen in the future, I don’t want to feel guilty when people say ‘why wasn’t anything said before?’, or for producers or editors to claim they didn’t know.”
During this time, there were rumours of a so-called “Gregg Wallace hotline” — reported by the Sun and the Mirror — a dedicated method for people to report Wallace’s inappropriate sexual behaviour. Banijay UK, the production team behind MasterChef strenuously deny this was set up, but there is no word yet as to whether this apparent ‘hotline’ was part of the BBC’s apparatus in dealing with incoming Wallace complaints.
The impression we are left with is that this behaviour might have been going on behind the scenes for at least the past 17 years, and has continued until this day. Rod Stewart took to Instagram to call Wallace a “bully” claiming he “humiliated” wife Penny Lancaster but “cut that bit out” of the edits. Lancaster was a contestant on the show in 2012.
If the investigation concludes that the allegations against Wallace are well-founded, the fundamental question must be this: how was this behaviour — deeply inappropriate at best, harassment at worst — allowed to go on for so long?
The victims of Wallace’s alleged behaviour claim to have reported all of these instances, in some cases multiple times over the years, which would meaning the BBC knew about it and failed to take appropriate action. Crucially, they kept Wallace on the air.
Didn’t Wallace always seem a little hyper-sexualised? Beyond the famed buttery biscuit base comments which propelled him to a certain level of online virality early on, his entire schtick appears to be that he makes obscene jokes to women under the pretence of talking about food, thereby getting away with it. Talk of sausages, pink racks, dipping one’s pork into something moist: it’s all been there since the beginning.
Wallace has previously dismissed any questions around his behaviour as “dad jokes” or harmless innuendo. His lawyers strongly deny he engages in sexually harassing behaviour.
Wallace responded yesterday afternoon with an apology to the target(s) of one of his recent online tirades against “middle-class women of a certain age”.
“I want to apologise for any offense that I caused with my post yesterday and any upset I may have caused to a lot of people” he began.
“I wasn’t in a good headspace when I posted it. I’ve been under a huge amount of stress. Um, 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”.
However, the head of Bectu, the union which represents broadcasters and the creative industries, Philippa Childs, said: “The time for broadcasters and industry to accept that their internal reporting mechanisms are inadequate is now.”
There are long-standing, deep-rooted issues at these institutions who, time and time again, fail to protect those making complaints, defending their glitziest stars.
If this is another example of such failures, Wallace will no doubt go away for a while. Who knows, give it a year and maybe he’ll be on Castaway.
