Gregg Wallace was always an unlikely TV star. Prematurely bald, stout, and the proud wearer of thick glasses, he seemed destined for an unglamorous life amid the vegetable stalls of the capital, rather than on TV screens across the country. And yet, the presenter, who today has stepped back from his role as a judge on MasterChef after a series of historic sexual misconduct allegations came to light, has made himself part of the furniture at the BBC. And that makes his rapid fall from grace even more troubling for the corporation, though Wallace’s lawyers say it is entirely false that he engages in behaviour of a sexually harassing nature.
Wallace was born in Peckham, in southeast London, in 1964. The Sixties were a time when Peckham, a traditionally working-class neighbourhood with a large African-Caribbean population, started to be redeveloped and re-energised, turning it into a vibrant, multicultural and upwardly mobile area. Yet, Wallace’s parents broke up when he was young and, by his own admission, he “lost all direction”. He left school at the age of 14, becoming an apprentice greengrocer, working at the world-famous Covent Garden Market, the mecca of British fruit and veg.
