Journalist Michael Odell has revealed that he 'felt sorry' for former MasterChef star Gregg Wallace after meeting him for lunch in his London home two years ago.
The Times journalist, was welcomed into Wallace's home to discuss how the TV star 'made it' as a huge star and household name in the UK after coming from a working class background but left feeling saddened by their conversation - which was heavily scattered by sexual jokes and innuendos from Wallace.
It comes as Wallace has been accused of making inappropriate sexual remarks and jokes by 13 people over a 17 year period. He strongly denied the allegations in a statement issued via his legal representatives. Wallace, who has since stepped back from MasterChef during an internal investigation, has also been accused of groping individuals. Celebrities including Rod Stewart, Charlotte Crosby, and Ulrika Jonsson have all spoken about about the TV star in recent days.
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BBC)Upon meeting the former MasterChef star, who has stepped away from the BBC programme he presented alongside John Torode for almost twenty years, Odell said he was drawn in my Wallace's warmth, good nature, and humour. They spoke about how Wallace had made it big in the world of showbiz at the age of 40, after working his way up working as a greengrocer for years.
Wallace, who has been accused of making sexual jokes - including a rape joke on set - appears to have always been inclined to make such jokes, according to Odell. When he was working on the markets as a greengrocer, Wallace told the journalist that one of his usual market cries when selling cucumbers to women would be: "Awright luv, it’s not like your old man’s. It won’t get bigger the more you touch it.”
On reflection, after hearing the joke at the time, the Times writer said: "OK, cancel me now, because I thought that was hilarious at the time, and yet it is clearly a sexualised joke. I am a male interviewer exactly the same age as Wallace. Would he have offered the same anecdote to a female journalist. I don’t know. Tone and context are important, obviously. Wallace wasn’t propositioning with his veg, simply reporting to me the patter of a fruit and veg salesman back in the day."
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Ian Stratton)While many have been offended and felt personally victimised by Wallace's jokes, including the 13 women who have come forward with allegations against him, the TV star admitted at the time that he felt it was the sheer power of his personality that helped him grow his greengrocer business from nothing into a £7.5 million empire - but no matter how successful he became, he couldn't, or didn't want to leave his working class background behind him.
During his lunch date with Wallace, the journalist said that he couldn't help but 'feel sorry' for the star when it was time to part ways and go home, after Wallace told him about the culture clash between himself and his own children.
"I actually remember feeling quite sorry for him when he told me about the culture clash with his privately educated children from a previous relationship, Tom and Libby, now 30 and 26 respectively. Their mother suffered with addiction and Wallace won custody when the oldest child was 10," Odell wrote.
"He sent both to private school, and during one holiday his daughter made a bruising observation. “Libby says to me, ‘Daddy, sometimes at school I forget myself and I talk like you and my friends say that I talk like a chav,’” he told me. Wallace laughed affectionately about this, but I felt there was sadness there."
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BBC)It comes after Wallace addressed his 'middle-aged woman' comments and issued an apology. Attempting to confront the allegations made against him, over the weekend, Gregg released a string of videos via Instagram Stories in which he argued those making claims against him were "a handful of middle class women of a certain age".
In his Instagram Stories video address to fans, Gregg said: "I’ve been doing MasterChef for 20 years. Amateur, Celebrity and Professional MasterChef. And in that time, I have worked with over 4,000 contestants of all different ages, all different backgrounds, all walks of life. And 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."
However, after intense backlash, he issued an apology over his reactive statement. In another video posted on Monday, he said: “I want to apologise for any offence that I caused with my post yesterday and any upset I may have caused to a lot of people.
“I wasn’t in a good headspace when I posted it, I’ve been under a huge amount of stress, a lot of emotion, I felt very alone, under siege yesterday when I posted it. It’s obvious to me I need to take some time out, now, while this investigation is under way I hope you understand and I do hope you will accept this apology.”
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