Gregg Wallace defends himself against allegations

Gregg Wallace defended himself against the allegations about him, insisting that “they are not true”.

Addressing the Daily Mail, Wallace – who moved away from the presentation of Masterchef last November following claims against him – said that he felt “attacked” and that he had considered suicide.

A BBC News investigation revealed The allegations of inappropriate sexual comments of 13 people who had worked with Wallace through a range of shows, over a period of 17 years.

Since then, other claims of “trial and error” have emerged, which Wallace has carefully denied.

The Masterchef production company, Banijay, has launched an investigation into historical allegations.

In his first interview Since the statements have emerged, Wallace said he had received “a tidal wave” on social networks after publishing an Instagram video that hit its accusers.

In the video, for which he then apologized, he declared that the assertions against him came from “a handful of women in the middle class of a certain age”.

“The news channels updated every hour with new allegations,” he said.

“You are looking at yourself being torn personally, criticized, accused of all kinds of things again and again. You think, that’s not true. This is not true. What’s going on?”

Wallace said he couldn’t sleep at the time, adding: “The feeling of being attacked, isolation, abandonment was overwhelming. No one in the BBC contacted me once these stories started to break – absolutely no one.”

The BBC and Banijay refused to comment.

Wallace said that at the time, his mother called him to ask him why people “attack”.

He said he replied, “I said something really stupid. They are investigating my behavior, but more and more people have complaints about me. Mom, they are not true. I haven’t done these things.”

Wallace revealed that her mother had recently died, adding that it was “terribly sad” that she had spent the last days of her life reading “horrible things” about her.

One of the women who spoke to BBC News as part of his investigation was the broadcaster Kirsty Wark who appeared on Celebrity Masterchef.

Wark accused Wallace of telling “sexualized jokes” during the shooting of the series, and said that it had left people “uncomfortable”.

But Wallace says that he was never aware that he had offended her until she was revealed last year, saying: “I thought we had mounted.”

Other personalities from high -level media, including Vanessa Feltz and Kirstie Allsopp, also spoke at the time.

Wallace said that Feltz’s complaint “dropped it for six”, and also pushed allsopp’s comments on his language, saying: “I would not have said that.”

Writing on Instagram in November, singer Sir Rod Stewart described Wallace as a “badly high intimidator” and said that the presenter “humiliated” his wife Penny Lancaster when she was on Masterchef in 2021.

Addressing this statement, Wallace said it was a “shame” because he loved Sir Rod. He recognized that there had been a “fall” between him and Lancaster, but said that it was finished “if an orchid should stay on a bowl of soup or not”.

He also approached other allegations that emerged towards the end of last year, one of which he had walked on the naked set with a sock on his penis.

He admitted to having put a “sock on my private songs” and open the door of his dressing room by shouting “Hourra”, but said that he had done this to three friends who were in the studio after the shooting had finished, rather than while he was going.

He admitted that some of the inappropriate jokes were “probably true”, saying: “part of what was said looks like the kind of comments I had made.”

But he insisted that he has never groped workers, calling for these “absolutely not true” claims.

He also said that many of those who worked with him had been favorable, including John Torode, his Masterchef co-presenter.

Torode did not respond to a request for comments.

When Banijay launched an investigation, Wallace said that his “world has dropped”.

“It is very difficult to explain the pressure unless you have gone through it. I thought of suicide all the time:” Is my insurance up to date? Will Wallace’s wife Anna have money? She doesn’t deserve this. It would be better if I was not there. “”

He told the newspaper that Banijay had organized a crisis of crisis to support him.

Wallace said it was recently diagnosed with autism, saying, “I clearly mean that I do not blame my behavior on my diagnosis, but that explains to me a lot.”

He added that he accepts that he was “very slow to wake up” to a changing work environment.

“It was not that it was seven years that I had a massive awakening and I realized that the character of Greengrocer noisy and energetic that I was on TV was, perhaps, becoming redundant. So I changed.”

“Honestly, I never wanted to upset anyone. I thought that I was going every day and that I deliver my searches. I didn’t know I was causing problems.”

Wallace has been one of the most upscale presenters in Great Britain for more than two decades.

BBC News, which is an editorially independent of the larger organization, began to investigate Wallace last summer, after having read the allegations. The statements were made in five shows from 2005 to 2022.

Most allegations came from production workers. Many were young female freelancers.

The allegations heard include Wallace speaking openly about her sex life, removing her top in front of a worker by saying that he wanted to “give her a fashion parade”, and saying to a junior colleague that he was not carrying to box under his jeans.

BBC News also heard a former Masterchef worker who says he has shown his photos to the bare breasts of himself and asked him for massages, and a former worker of the big weekends of Gregg Wallace of Channel 5, who says that he was fascinated by the fact that she was going out with women and asked for the logistics of her operation.

Another Masterchef worker in 2019 says that Wallace spoke about her sex life; A BBC worker Good Food Show in 2010 says Wallace looked at her chest; And a male worker on Masterchef in 2005-06 says that Wallace regularly said sexually explicit things on the set.

After the BBC News initial investigation, more women presented complaints.

A woman says that he touched her buttocks at an event and another says he has pressed his crotch against her while turning on another show.

His lawyers firmly denied that he behaves in the behavior of a nature victim of sexual harassment.

Wallace has repeatedly refused requests for BBC News interview.

If you have been affected by one of the problems raised in this story, information and support may be found to the BBC action line.