Gregg Wallace has responded to the mounting allegations against him in a defiant video posted online, saying the accusations come from “middle-class women of a certain age”.
Wallace, who has stepped back from presenting the BBC cooking show MasterChef after accusations he made sexual comments towards staff and celebrity guests on a range of programmes over 17 years, said he has worked with more than 4,000 contestants over the years “of all different ages, background and walks of life”.
“Apparently now, I’m reading in the paper, there’s been 13 complaints in that time,” Wallace said in the video posted on Instagram.
“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.”
In a second video, he said: “In 20 years, over 20 years of television, can you imagine how many women, female contestants on MasterChef, have made sexual remarks, or sexual innuendo, can you imagine?”
The TV star’s lawyers said: “it is entirely false that he engages in behaviour of a sexually harassing nature”, BBC News reported.
On Saturday Banijay UK, the production company which makes the programme, called for anyone wishing to raise allegations into alleged misconduct to contact legal firm Lewis Silkin.
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It has been appointed to lead an investigation.
A spokesperson said: “All information will be handled sensitively, and names of those providing evidence to the team will be kept confidential.”
Wallace has been a presenter on the programme since 2005, as well as its spin-offs Celebrity MasterChef and MasterChef: The Professionals.
Banijay previously said he has “committed to fully co-operating throughout the process” after the BBC received complaints over “historical allegations of misconduct”.
This week Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark told the BBC she saw Wallace “use sexualised language in front of a number of people” when she appeared on Celebrity MasterChef in 2011.
Singer Sir Rod Stewart criticised Wallace on Instagram and claimed he “humiliated” his wife Penny Lancaster in 2021.
The presenter is yet to directly address any of those allegations.
On Friday, the charity Ambitious About Autism said it had dropped him as an ambassador citing the “recent allegations”.
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