Gregg Wallace has been accused of making sexualised jokes and other inappropriate remarks towards a range of women dating back nearly two decades.
The 60-year-old MasterChef presenter announced last week that he was stepping back from the BBC show amid an investigation into his conduct. Wallace’s lawyers have said it is entirely false to suggest he engages in behaviour of a sexually harassing nature.
On Sunday he said his accusers were “middle-class women of a certain age” and claimed that “absolutely none” of the staff on his other shows had complained about him.
These are the allegations that have emerged in the last four days.
Kirsty Wark and the 13 accusers
The broadcaster Kirsty Wark was one of the first women to publicly accuse Wallace of inappropriate behaviour, telling BBC News last week that he told “sexualised” jokes during filming of Celebrity MasterChef in 2011. Wark said she felt the comments were “really, really in the wrong place” and that they made people “uncomfortable”.
The former Newsnight host said she raised it at the time with an executive at the production company, Shine, and the gist of the reply was “almost as if it was some kind of affliction”, adding: “And if his behaviour became too egregious, he’d be pulled back.”
Wark was one of 13 people making allegations about Wallace’s conduct over a 17-year period, BBC News reported last Thursday. The claims included Wallace talking openly about his sex life, taking his top off in front of a female worker saying he wanted to “give her a fashion show”, and telling a junior female colleague he wasn’t wearing any boxer shorts under his jeans.
Allegations dating back 19 years
Many of the accusations against Wallace span the last decade, the height of Wallace’s TV fame, but some date as far back as 19 years. BBC News reported that a worker on MasterChef said Wallace regularly made sexually explicit remarks on set in 2005 and 2006.
A former contestant, Dr Kate Tomas, has said she complained about his treatment of her on the show in 2008 but that nothing was done. In a video on TikTok, Tomas alleged that he sexually harassed her and described him as “disgusting and repulsive”.
She called him a “racist piece of shit” and claimed he impersonated an Indian accent in front of a staff member who was Indian. Tomas said his actions meant she refused to appear again on the show when they asked her to return as one of the “best losers”.
Kirstie Allsopp
The presenter Kirstie Allsopp became the latest person to accuse Wallace of making inappropriate remarks when she said he referred to sex acts shortly after meeting her.
Writing on X on Sunday, the co-host of Location, Location, Location said: “Within 1hr of meeting Gregg Walllace he told me of a sex act that he & his partner at the time enjoyed ‘every morning’, she’d just left the room, we were filming a pilot. Did he get off on how embarrassed I was? It was totally unprofessional, I’m a #MiddleClassWomanOfaCertainAge”.
Allsopp said Wallace made the remarks in the green room rather than on camera. She added: “Why say nothing? Because you feel, in no particular order, embarrassed, a prude, shocked, waiting for a male colleague to call him out, not wanting to ‘rock the boat’, thinking it’s better to plough on with the day, assuming you misheard/misunderstood or just don’t get the joke.”
Complaint in 2012
A number of women have said they reported concerns about Wallace to television bosses years ago but he was allowed to remain on screen. The actor and author Emma Kennedy said she complained about the presenter to production staff in 2012 after he allegedly touched another woman’s bottom.
Kennedy, who won the seventh edition of Celebrity MasterChef, said: “I complained about behaviour I witnessed on MasterChef in 2012. They knew then. They knew before then and they’ve known since.”
She added: “The photographer had a young female assistant and she bent over and in front of me. Gregg went over and went ‘corr!’ with his hands over her arse. I think he touched her, because she did react, though I cannot be 100% certain that he did touch her.
“He thought it was funny. It wasn’t the act of a sexual predator; it was the act of somebody who just doesn’t get that that stuff is inappropriate.”
Kennedy said she later spoke to a member of the MasterChef public relations team and that “the only topic of conversation was ‘when the problem with GW was going to come to light’.”
Complaint in 2017
The Sunday Times has reported that Wallace was warned by a BBC executive in 2017 that his behaviour was “unacceptable and cannot continue” after complaints were made by the broadcaster Aasmah Mir, who appeared on the 12th series of Celebrity MasterChef.
Kate Phillips, who oversees unscripted programmes for the BBC, said she would ensure that she was “informed straight away” should further allegations be made against the MasterChef host, according to the report.
Mir apparently wrote in an email forwarded to Phillips in November 2017: “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.”
Warning in 2018
Wallace is said to have received a warning from BBC bosses in 2018 after a complaint was raised about his behaviour on the quizshow Impossible Celebrities. Two of the women who complained told BBC News that he made staff feel uncomfortable by talking about his sex life and making “disgusting” sexual jokes.
The broadcaster reported that a formal HR investigation took place and concluded that “many aspects of [Wallace’s] behaviour were both unacceptable and unprofessional”.
In a subsequent letter, seen by BBC News, a BBC executive said she had held a 90-minute meeting with Wallace to make clear “how seriously the BBC takes this matter”. She also reassured the workers that action would be taken “to prevent a similar reoccurrence and to safeguard others in the future”. But further incidents have since emerged.
Complaint in 2022
A letter containing multiple allegations of inappropriate behaviour by Wallace was sent to the BBC in 2022 but did not prompt further investigation at the time, the Observer revealed on Sunday.
The letter described a “pattern of behaviour” by the MasterChef presenter that “clearly fails to meet the sexual harassment and bullying standards that prohibit unwelcome sexual advances and sexual innuendo”.
Dawn Elrick, the director and producer who sent the 2022 letter on behalf of other women who had contacted her, said the BBC suggested each individual would have to make their own direct complaint to the corporation.
Elrick said that soon after sending the letter she also submitted the allegations to the BBC via Navex Global, an external whistleblowing service. She said she received no further contact with regards to that report.
Elrick said the BBC’s lack of action showed there was “no satisfactory means of reporting sexual harassment and bullying within the TV industry”.
Claims about other shows
Wallace is facing claims from people who worked or appeared on other shows in addition to those related to MasterChef, Celebrity MasterChef and Impossible Celebrities. Women who worked on the shows Gregg Wallace’s Big Weekends and Eat Well for Less? allege he regularly behaved inappropriately, including making “highly inappropriate” comments about sex.
One woman said he made constant “lesbian jokes” and became “fascinated” by her relationships with women and wanted to know the “logistics” of how she dated while filming Big Weekends in 2019.
Another woman told BBC News that while working on the Channel 5 programme at the same time Wallace’s conversation often revolved around sex, including spanking and domination.
Last year, Wallace stood down from the show Inside the Factory after staff at a Nestlé factory in York complained that he made inappropriate comments about the weight of female employees.
Wallace responds
Wallace’s lawyers have said the suggestion that he engages in behaviour of a sexually harassing nature is entirely false.
He took aim at his accusers in an Instagram video on Sunday, saying: “I’ve been doing MasterChef for 20 years, amateur, celebrity and professional MasterChef, and I think in that time I have worked with over 4,000 contestants of all different ages, all different backgrounds, all walks of life.
“Apparently now, I’m reading in the paper, there’s been 13 complaints in that time. In the newspaper, I can see the complaints coming from a handful of middle-class women of a certain age, just from Celebrity MasterChef. This isn’t right.
“In 20 years, over 20 years of television, can you imagine how many women, female contestants on MasterChef, have made sexual remarks, or sexual innuendo? Can you imagine?”
Wallace went on to claim that “absolutely none” of the staff on his other shows had complained about him.
He said: “Look, this is important to me. Twenty years of doing Celebrity MasterChef, amateur, professional, Eat Well for Less?, Inside the Factory. Do you know how many staff, all different sorts of staff, you imagine the people I’ve worked with. Do you know how many staff complained about me in that time? Absolutely none. Zero. Seriously.”
Broadcasters respond
MasterChef’s production company, Banijay UK, has launched an investigation into Wallace’s behaviour and said the 60-year-old is “committed to fully cooperating throughout the process”.
It said in a statement last week: “While this review is under way, Gregg Wallace will be stepping away from his role on MasterChef and is committed to fully cooperating throughout the process. Banijay UK’s duty of care to staff is always a priority and our expectations regarding behaviour are made clear to both cast and crew on all productions, with multiple ways of raising concerns, including anonymously, clearly promoted on set.”
The company said allegations had not been raised directly with it but it felt “it is appropriate to conduct an immediate external review to fully and impartially investigate”. It said anyone with issues or concerns could contact speakup@banijayuk.com in confidence.
A BBC spokesperson said: “We are always clear that any behaviour which falls below the standards expected by the BBC will not be tolerated. Where an individual is contracted directly by an external production company we share any complaints or concerns with that company and we will always support them when addressing them.”
A spokesperson for Channel 5, which airs Big Weekends, said: “We take any allegations of this nature extremely seriously. We have asked the production company to look into these historical claims. The health and wellbeing of everyone involved in our productions is very important to us and we want all of our productions to be safe and secure places for people to work.”