Gregg Wallace is to step away from presenting MasterChef while allegations of historical misconduct are investigated, the show’s production company has said.
It comes after BBC News sent a letter to Wallace’s representatives on Tuesday setting out allegations of inappropriate sexual comments by 13 people who worked with him across a range of shows over a 17-year period.
Broadcaster Kirsty Wark, who was a Celebrity MasterChef contestant in 2011, said he told “sexualised” jokes during filming.
Wallace’s lawyers say it is entirely false that he engages in behaviour of a sexually harassing nature. Masterchef’s production company Banijay UK has launched an investigation and said Wallace is co-operating.
Wark, who is best known for hosting BBC Newsnight, told BBC News that on two occasions, during early morning filming, Wallace told stories and jokes of a “sexualised nature” in front of contestants and crew.
She said she feels strongly that the comments were “really, really in the wrong place”.
Other allegations we’ve heard include 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.
BBC News has also heard from a former MasterChef worker who says he showed her topless pictures of himself and asked for massages, and a former worker on Gregg Wallace’s Big Weekends, who says he was fascinated by the fact she dated women and asked for the logistics of how it worked.
‘Unacceptable and unprofessional’
We have also found that Wallace was warned by the BBC after a complaint was raised about him in 2018 about the show Impossible Celebrities.
A formal HR investigation took place and, in the outcome letter, which we have seen, the BBC concluded that “many aspects of [Wallace’s] behaviour were both unacceptable and unprofessional”.
In a subsequent letter, which we have also seen, 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.
BBC News started investigating Wallace in the summer, after becoming aware of allegations. The claims we have heard are across five shows, from 2005 to 2022.
BBC News is editorially independent from the wider organisation.
Announcing its investigation on Thursday, Banijay UK said in a statement: “This week the BBC received complaints from individuals in relation to historical allegations of misconduct while working with presenter Gregg Wallace on one of our shows.”
Wallace, 60, is “committed to fully co-operating throughout the process”, it added.
