Dame Prue Leith has said Gregg Wallace is ‘too insensitive to know how offensive’ he is but shouldn’t lose his job on MasterChef.
After 20 years fronting the BBC cooking series, last week Wallace, 60, announced he was stepping aside.
It came after the BBC launched an investigation into historical allegations of misconduct against him, with the TV presenter being accused of making inappropriate sexual comments and groping several women.
Since the allegations emerged, many have spoken about their encounters with Wallace, which came after he claimed complaints against him were coming from ‘middle-class women of a certain age’.
Now The Great British Bake Off judge Prue, 84, has weighed in too but has said she believes he shouldn’t lose his job.
‘I’m a great believer in due process…he should just stay off social media because he’s just digging himself deeper and deeper into a hole because he’s too insensitive to understand how offensive it is,’ she said.
‘But that’s his problem, that he’s insensitive. He hasn’t, that I can see, disobeyed the law. I don’t believe people should be cancelled or sacked.
‘I can see why you would ask somebody to step aside while they investigate things, which I suppose is what they’re doing. But I think the tragedy in this is that I bet you Gregg has no idea what he’s done wrong.’
She added when speaking to Times Radio: ‘I don’t want to say that he should be sacked because I don’t know what the crime is.’
After being asked whether she believed TV executives were ‘weak’, she agreed and said they should be ‘tough with their presenters’ and ‘be clear what the rules are’.
Dame Prue went on to say there was ‘no such thing as an irreplaceable talent’ and said it was ‘stupid of the talent to become arrogant and think that they’re too good to sack, because nobody’s too good to sack’.
The next season of MasterChef has already been filmed, with Irish chef Anna Haugh stepping in to replace Wallace for the final few episodes that were recorded over the past week.
Despite Wallace stepping down, it’s been revealed the show is set to continue for at least another four years.
However, a source told MailOnline Wallace ‘is set to be wiped’ from the next season despite it already being filmed.
Although the BBC has said the future of the show won’t be decided until the investigation concludes, a production insider said the series was ‘salvageable’ as the two judges’ critiques were filmed separately.
This week his co-judge John Torode released a statement, saying he would ‘continue to be a part of’ MasterChef and the thought of anyone who appeared on the programme not having a ‘brilliant experience’ was ‘awful.
Banijay UK, the producers of MasterChef, previously said Wallace was ‘committed to fully cooperating’ with the external review while his lawyers strongly denied ‘he engages in behaviour of a sexually harassing nature’.
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