TV presenter Melanie Sykes has opened up about the moment she finally decided to quit telly after years of experiencing 'toxic culture'. It came in 2021 when she appeared on BBC cookery competition, MasterChef and co-host Gregg Wallace made a comment which saw Mel decide to pack it all in.
Speaking in an interview with The Guardian, Mel, who first shot to fame in the 1990s as the face of Boddingtons, said that Wallace told her the show would “do a lot for you”, but actually it made her “decide to end my television career once and for all. I was done".
She added that she was finished “tap-dancing for corporations who couldn’t give two hoots about my wellbeing”, and told the publication that mainstream TV “just doesn’t interest me … I’m out of that game”.
