MasterChef star Gregg Wallace is under fire after he was accused of 'inappropriate behaviour' by a number of women, including Celebrity MasterChef contestants.
The star, 60, has denied allegations of inappropriate sexual comments he is said to have made. Following the news that an investigation would be launched into his alleged conduct, Sir Rod Stewart referred to Wallace as a "tubby, bald-headed, ill-mannered bully" after the musician claimed Gregg had bullied his wife, Penny Lancaster, while she was on the show.
And 2012 Celebrity MasterChef winner Emma Kennedy has now claimed that Gregg touched an assistant on the bum, sparking an instant reaction. Elsewhere, TV star Ulrika Jonsson has claimed another female contestant heard Wallace make a 'rape joke' on MasterChef.
It comes as Wallace is "committed to fully cooperating throughout the process" during the BBC's investigation process, a statement from the show's production company Banijay UK said. He has also stepped away from his role on the show amid the investigation. On Sunday morning, Gregg took to social media to challenge the accusations and claimed they came from "middle-class women of a certain age".
Lawyers representing Gregg say "it is entirely false that he engages in behaviour of a sexually harassing nature". Here are the accusations made by Celebrity MasterChef contestants.
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BBC)Kirsty Wark
Among those who have made complaints is Kirsty Wark, who was a Celebrity MasterChef contestant in 2011. She talked about how he told "sexualised" jokes during filming.
Broadcaster Kirsty, best known for hosting BBC Newsnight, claimed earlier this week that Wallace told “jokes of a sexualised nature" on two occasions during filming. She added that crew and other contestants were present. Speaking to BBC News , Kirsty said Wallace’s alleged remarks were "really, really in the wrong place".
Kirsty finished second on that year’s Celebrity Masterchef and later said she was considering opening her own restaurant. Asked in a BBC radio interview in 2012 if she fancied opening a restaurant or café, she said: “I have registered a domain name of Kirsty’s Kitchen. I don’t know exactly what I will do with it yet. It would be fun.”
Penny Lancaster
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BBC)After the accusations emerged, Sir Rod Stewart took to his Instagram page to hit out at Wallace and called him a "tubby, bald-headed, ill-mannered bully." He wrote: "So Greg Wallace gets fired from Masterchef. Good riddance Wallace…You humiliated my wife when she was on the show but you had that bit cut out didn’t you? You’re a tubby, bald-headed, ill-mannered bully. Karma got ya. Sir Rod Stewart."
Model Penny took part in the celebrity version of the BBC cooking show in 2021, but only managed to make it to the quarter finals. Though she had impressed Wallace and fellow host John Torode with some of her dishes, her butternut squash ravioli went 10 minutes over time.
Viewers saw Wallace tell Penny: 'Mate, we can’t be 10 minutes late," as he called her delay in delivering the dish "serious". But Penny was having none of it as she hit back: "Well, we're going to have to be, otherwise I won’t have a dish." Afterwards she admitted: "Everything piled on top of me. I just hope the wait was worth it."
A spokesperson for Penny recently revealed that she is prepared to go to the authorities. Speaking to Mail Online, they said: "While Penny is happy to talk to the appropriate authorities should they feel she has anything useful to add, she will not be discussing the matter with any broadcaster or newspaper at this time."
Ulrika Jonsson
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PA)Ulrika Jonsson also made a claim about Wallace on her Instagram Stories. The TV presenter and model, 57, claimed another female contestant heard Wallace make a 'rape joke' on MasterChef. The Swedish-British star, who took part in the show in 2017, claimed that she felt like she was being 'made a liar of' after Gregg's lawyers insisted that all the claims were 'entirely false'.
In another Instagram story, she claimed that several members of the crew on Masterchef knew what was going on and had allegedly seen Gregg's inappropriate behaviour. She claimed: "Plenty of crew on set who would not dare to speak up for fear of losing their jobs."
Speaking to the Telegraph, Jonsson claimed that another female contestant had become "really distressed" after Wallace's alleged remarks. The star claimed that she saw the woman walking off set and asked her what had happened before Jonsson was told about the alleged 'rape joke'. "She then told us that Gregg Wallace had made a rape joke. She was really distressed about it.”
The contestant then retold the joke to Jonsson, before deciding to speak to a producer about the incident. “They then went off to speak to Gregg,” she said. “After a while he came up…and he apologised. He could hardly get his words out... He was apologising, and he had tears in his eyes."
Ulrika has since hit out at Gregg branding him "ignorant and arrogant" after his video claiming that the allegations had been made by "middle-class women of a certain age." Speaking to The Sun, she said: "I am nothing short of seething. Somewhere in his misogynistic, thoughtless, ancient mind he felt it appropriate to tell the world this. Oh, Gregg. Your ignorance and arrogance knows no bounds. Firstly, you have no clue what ‘class’ of women it is that have made complaints about you. What we can ascertain is that they are a shed-load classier than you will ever be."
Charlotte Crosby
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PA)Geordie Shore star Charlotte Crosby, who appeared on the latest Celebrity MasterChef, told her followers: "He was extremely unpleasant to me when I was on MasterChef." The TV star didn't expand on her claim but previously spoke of her time on MasterChef while on the One Show. She said: "There's something about that space and that studio you feel like a little kid again. It's horrible, all the lights are on you. The pressure - it's really scary. There was a lot of emotion!"
Wallace's lawyers have said "it is entirely false that he engages in behaviour of a sexually harassing nature." The BBC also released a statement saying: "We take any issues that are raised with us seriously and we have robust processes in place to deal with them. 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. It would be inappropriate for us to comment on anything that could form part of Banijay's ongoing investigation or otherwise influence it."
Emma Kennedy
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BBC)2012 Celebrity MasterChef winner Emma Kennedy claims she flagged that she believed she saw Gregg touch a photographer assistant’s bottom. She said: “I told an assistant producer, I told a producer, and I told the head of PR at Masterchef. I got the sense that this was something that they were well used to, if I’m being honest, and that it was just a sort of ‘roll your eyes’, and well, ‘this is Gregg being Gregg’.”
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