John Torode raised concerns to the BBC over Gregg Wallace’s on-set behaviour on MasterChef only for no action to be taken - a source close to the presenter is reported to have said.
The pro chef has not commented on the allegations specifically but has now broken his silence about his ‘TV husband’, who is now the subject of an investigation into inappropriate behaviour.
Torode said: “The thought of anyone who has appeared on our show not having a brilliant experience is awful to hear.”
The pair have been the faces of MasterChef for nearly 20 years but while they bounce off each other with playfulness and a passion for exceptional cooking, they are not known to be as pally off-screen.
Famously, the two have never been round each other's houses and while Torode was best man at Wallace’s 2016 wedding to Anna-Marie, it’s said the pair’s relationship is fraught.
Torode told the Mirror in 2017: “We’ve never been friends”.
He added: “If we go away to somewhere like South Africa, we do things separately. If we do go out for a drink, I'll invariably be at one end of a big old table, and he'll be at the other."
Torode went on to reveal in the same interview: “Once, we had a bit too much to drink and filming got called off. We ended up having a massive fight about one of the contestants, and he got really stubborn – it was ridiculous. We've had a couple of stand-offs over the years about contestants, and I've just had to walk away from him.”
Later, in 2020, Torode gave an interview to Hello! Magazine, where he stated: “We are mates, but also mates fall out. We have to make sure our relationship is professional and that nothing infiltrates that at all.”
More recently still, in October of this year when rumours about the outcomes of the BBC News investigation were clearly circulating, Torode’s wife, Lisa Faulkner, expressed her anger and frustration at Wallace’s constant retelling of sexually explicit and inappropriate jokes.
Faulkner shared an anecdote about a live cooking demonstration: “Gregg was telling – I'm probably not allowed to say this… Gregg just told rude joke after rude joke to the crew. You're just sitting there and if you're on the front bench just chopping away thinking, ‘I've got ten minutes left’, and he's saying, ‘So this girl walked into a bar…’ And I'm going, ‘Please, I don't want to hear this joke’.”
It’s clear that, despite a professional relationship, the two have never quite got along behind the scenes.
While Torode remains quiet in the current furore, Wallace has his defenders.
William Sitwell called him a “top bloke”, journalist Robin Aitkin said Wallace is “blokeish” and “only made a few off colour remarks”, while Coronation Street star Charlie Lawson said Kirsty Wark, a leading figure at the BBC and vocal member of the 13 women who have accused Wallace of impropriety, should have shown “more guts” and just told Wallace to “shut the f*** up”.
Despite Torode and Wallace burying the hatchet enough to continue working together on this year’s MasterChef, it’s unlikely the pair's creative TV marriage will weather this current storm, with many predicting Wallace will not return to the show.
Wallace has even unfollowed Torode on Instagram, which perhaps says it all.
