A month ago, Gregg Wallace cremated his mother. Mary Pettman, 80, suffered a fatal heart attack in her sleep as her son was overwhelmed by a tsunami of lurid allegations about inappropriate behaviour on BBC’s MasterChef.
His mum could never really understand why people were, as she said, ‘picking on’ him.
‘She was always very proud of me. I’m her eldest and, of course, I was on the telly. I think it’s terribly sad that in the last days of her life she was reading horrible things about me and witnessing my disgrace,’ says Gregg, 60, who stepped down from MasterChef five months ago while complaints from 13 women about historical allegations of misconduct were investigated.
The findings, which are expected to largely find in Gregg’s favour, will be made public next month.
‘Mum was a spiritualist. I was always sceptical but I’m really hoping she was right. I hope she’s up there looking down and sees my recovery.’
He struggles to control the tears that threaten to spill. None of this is easy for Gregg. He loved his mother ‘to bits’ and she always had his back.
Gregg Wallace with his wife Anna at their home in Kent. Anna is a shy woman but is determined to speak up for her husband
She was there for him when he was vilified for saying, in an incendiary online rant, that the allegations came from ‘a handful of middle-class women of a certain age’.
So widespread was the outrage that even Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer condemned Gregg’s words as ‘completely inappropriate and misogynistic.’
‘Mum phoned and said, “Love, what’s going on? The Prime Minister’s talking about you. Who have you upset? Why are they picking on you?”
‘I said, “I’ve said something really stupid. They’re investigating my behaviour, but more and more people are coming forward with complaints about me. Mum, they’re not all true. I haven’t done these things.’
‘She said, “I don’t believe you have.”’
Gregg, who until that point had only faced two complaints in a 20-year career that saw him work with as many as 4,000 contestants and crew on programmes such as MasterChef, MasterChef: The Professionals and Celebrity MasterChef, was at breaking point when he posted that video on Instagram shortly after stepping down.
‘I hadn’t slept for four days. The feeling of being under attack, of isolation, of abandonment was overwhelming. Nobody from the BBC contacted me once these stories started breaking – absolutely nobody at all.
‘News channels were updating hourly with new allegations. There was a tidal wave of abuse on social media, a dozen reporters outside the gate. You’re watching yourself get personally ripped apart, criticised, accused of all sorts of stuff over and over again. You’re thinking, “This isn’t true. It isn’t true. What’s coming next?”
When the horrible ‘nightmare’ began, Gregg felt so soiled he couldn’t bring himself to touch his wife for weeks
‘You don’t sleep. Your chest races. Your body feels like it’s shutting down because it can’t cope with the levels of stress. You feel really dirty and horrible because everybody is saying you’re a pervert.
‘Women – big, respected personalities I thought I had a decent relationship with – were attacking me.’
Newsnight host Kirsty Wark, 70, accused Gregg of telling ‘sexualised’ jokes during the filming of Celebrity MasterChef in 2011.
He maintains he was never aware that he had offended her until her complaint became public.
‘I thought we got on. She made it to the final three, so we were together for three months. I can clearly remember drinking champagne with her at the end of the show and sharing jokes.
‘I hadn’t seen the complaint so I didn’t know what it was. I thought, “What have I done?” I literally didn’t understand it.’
Other respected media figures, including broadcasters Vanessa Feltz, 63, and Kirstie Allsopp, 53, also made complaints.
‘Vanessa Feltz really knocked me for six. She had a story from a friend of hers who said she’d overheard me saying something sexual in a lift. I’ve always got on well with Vanessa. I’ve been on her show. We even swapped messages on social media.
Newsnight host Kirsty Wark, 70, accused Gregg of telling ‘sexualised’ jokes during the filming of Celebrity MasterChef in 2011. He maintains he was never aware that he had offended her until her complaint became public
Gregg was surprised by the complaint made by broadcaster Vanessa Feltz, saying: ‘I’ve always got on well with Vanessa. I’ve been on her show. We even swapped messages on social media’
‘I’m thinking, “Really, Vanessa, you’re weighing in with something someone else told you that I was supposed to have said in a lift? I thought you liked me”.
‘Then there was Kirstie [Allsopp] who said I was in a green room with her and my ex-wife. She said my ex-wife went out and I talked about [a sex act] I’d done with her. But it [the sex act] is not my thing. I tried it once when I was 28 and didn’t like it so I wouldn’t have said that.
‘I’m like, “Ladies, what are you doing? What’s happening here?”
‘That’s what was going through my mind when I lashed out. There was no strategy. I was just angry. I wanted to shout.’
Gregg’s voice cracks. This is the first interview he has given since the accusations were made. He tells me the crippling feeling of tension returns when he talks about it. Last weekend he suffered chest pains, worrying his lovely wife of nine years, Anna.
She is here now in their idyllic home in Kent, where there are songbirds on the wallpaper and stables in the six-acre grounds. Anna is a shy woman but is determined to speak up for her husband.
When the horrible ‘nightmare’ began, Gregg felt so soiled he couldn’t bring himself to touch his wife for weeks.
‘I’d give him a hug, put my hand on his leg, any sort of physical touch. I told him, “Whenever you’re ready we can be back to how it was before. There’s no rush. No pressure,”‘ Anna says.
Gregg pictured in the grounds of his home in Kent, after the first interview he has given since the allegations were made
‘I wanted him to know I knew he wasn’t the person the media was portraying him to be. He’s a warm family man who would do anything for anyone.
‘About a week into it all, he broke down in the hallway. He was sobbing, “I’m broken. They’ve beaten me. They’ve completely ruined my name.”
‘It just got too much for him. He’s quite a strong man who doesn’t show emotion, so for him to break down crying was just…’
Anna, who dearly loves the man she met 12 years ago, tails off, tearful. ‘I was scared he’d crumble completely.’
Soon the number of complainants had risen from 13 to 30. There were allegations he’d walked around the set naked with a sock on his penis doing a silly dance in front of the production team (‘Not true,’ he says), told inappropriate jokes (‘Probably true; some of what’s been said sounds like the sort of comments I’d have made’) and groped crew members (‘Absolutely not true’).
A distraught Gregg, who maintains he has never knowingly bullied or sexually harassed anyone, couldn’t make sense of it.
‘I phoned eight different members of MasterChef including [celebrity chefs] Monica [Galetti] and Marcus [Wareing] and said, “Could you help me out please, because I’ve got no memory of this? Can you ever remember me touching anybody on set?”
‘They said, “Absolutely not. Never.” Monica said she’d have hit me if I had. I was like, “OK, thanks. I thought I was going mad.’
Gregg with his MasterChef: The Professionals co-stars Marcus Wareing and Monica Galetti
‘As for wandering around the studio naked with a sock on my kn**, I was actually in my dressing room getting ready for a black-tie charity [event] 18 years ago.
‘We’d finished filming, so the studio was empty apart from Monica and two of my other mates who were on the sofa beside my dressing room. I could see them outside the door. I think they were drinking.
‘I had my dress shirt and bowtie on, put the sock over my private bits, opened my door quickly, went “Hooray”, then closed it again.
‘Monica says it’s one of the funniest things she’s ever seen. She still tells the story. So, the people who said they saw it, didn’t. They just heard about it.’
Gregg says that many of those who work with him are appalled by what is happening. His MasterChef co-host John Torode has phoned twice.
‘He wanted to know if I was OK and to say sorry about my mum. Marcus tells me to stay strong and Monica just wants me to clear this up and get back to the studio,’ says Gregg.
‘Look, I don’t want to make myself sound innocent because, I’ve come to realise, I must have offended a lot of people over the years when you look at the number of complaints.
‘But people on MasterChef are in a very stressed situation and many of them are going to leave disappointed with shattered dreams. I think there has been a lot of misunderstanding of my intention, and so many of the complaints are from so long ago. There’s a difference between what they think I said and what was actually said.’
Gregg says that many of those who work with him are appalled by what is happening. His MasterChef co-host John Torode has phoned twice
Sir Rod Stewart’s wife Penny Lancaster accused Gregg of bullying and harassing her on Celebrity MasterChef four years ago.
‘There was a falling out between me and her, but I only had a brief recollection,’ says Gregg. ‘Luckily enough there’s film of it – the rushes [raw footage], not the edited stuff you see on the telly. It’s Penny and me having a disagreement over whether an orchid should stay on a bowl of soup or not. I’m not joking.
‘I want to take the orchid off because it’s not edible. She wants it to stay on.’
He shakes his head. ‘It’s a shame. I really like Rod Stewart. I’ve been to see him three times. I understand he’s defending his wife.
‘I honestly never meant to upset anyone. I thought I was going in every day and just delivering what was wanted. I didn’t realise I was causing any problems.’
Gregg now understands, since being diagnosed with autism partway through this investigation, that his social filter is different to many of ours. He can overshare and often fails to read a room. He is also remorselessly honest.
‘I want to make it absolutely clear I’m not blaming my behaviour on my diagnosis, but it does explain a hell of a lot to me,’ he says.
‘Although I’m still trying to compute why, if my persona on the telly was pissing so many people off for all those years, nobody told me at the time.’
In truth, the loud, energetic former greengrocer we saw on TV is only a small part of Gregg.
Sir Rod Stewart’s wife Penny Lancaster accused Gregg of bullying and harassing her on Celebrity MasterChef four years ago
‘I’ve always wondered why people think you can’t love a roasted grouse as well as a Big Mac,’ he says. ‘I’m a working-class Londoner but I’m also a massive history buff with a real interest in English literature, architecture and art.’
Gregg is also an introspective man with a gift for laughter, who is happiest with his family. This includes two grown-up children, Tom, 31, and Libby, 27, from an earlier marriage, and Sid, his profoundly autistic, non-verbal five-year-old son with his fourth wife Anna, 38.
Since his own diagnosis earlier this year, Gregg has a ‘greater empathy’ for his son.
‘It’s almost like we’re a little gang. Last night over dinner I said to Anna, “I always thought it came from you because I’ve had two children previously who seemed to be neurotypical. Now I know it wasn’t you or your family. It was me all along.’’’
Sid is an engaging, affectionate boy but, such are his challenges, he can be a handful.
Anna’s mother Rina, who shares the family home in Kent, is a huge support. She is beside herself to see Gregg brought so low. He has shown her nothing but kindness. When her husband Massimo was dying from lung cancer a year before the MasterChef allegations broke, Gregg stuck a hospital bed in the TV room, insisting they cared for him at home.
‘Gregg can be so generous,’ says Anna. ‘He has this need for people to like him. He might as well wear a T-shirt saying, “Like me, like me” in big flashing lights.’
Journalists began investigating Gregg’s behaviour on MasterChef last summer. He says, ‘I naively thought, “How long is it going to take them before they realise I just come home and read history books? What are they going to find?” All right, I might tell a joke about a three-legged nun or a wonky donkey, but I haven’t done anything wrong.’
‘I never thought I’d be put in a sack and thrown in the river for comments I made 20 years ago. What was normal to us all then isn’t now.’
Gregg joined MasterChef with John Torode in 2005. Their light-hearted banter, laced with sexual innuendo, helped the show become one of the most successful programmes on the BBC in an age when parties, not people, were cancelled; snowflakes were iced crystals that fell in cold weather; and Trigger was a fictional character in the much-loved Only Fools And Horses, not a woke warning about outdated attitudes that was slapped on the classic comedy earlier this year.
Gregg fully expects to be held to account for some of his smuttier historic jokes. ‘I was very slow to wake up to the changing nature of the work environment. It wasn’t until seven years ago that I had a massive wake-up call and realised the loud, energetic greengrocer persona I was on the telly was, maybe, becoming redundant. So I changed.’
Seven years ago, Gregg was disciplined by the BBC for inappropriate behaviour while working on a quiz show, after telling a young runner on the final day of filming that he’d ‘really enjoyed working with her, she was brilliantly clever, strikingly attractive and was going to do well’.
‘They said that was improper because it was a personal remark and sent me on a course on how to communicate with younger people, which just confused me even more.
‘I thought, “F***, I don’t have to do very much to get into a lot of trouble here.”’
Gregg stopped socialising with young people. When on location, he’d order room service rather than join them for dinner or a drink.
‘When they asked me why I said, “You make me nervous. The sensibilities of a 60-year-old man are different to a 25-year-old’s. You live in a complaint culture that never existed when I was younger. If I go out with you and drink and offer an opinion, whether that be political or social, I’m scared you’re going to complain.”
‘They’d say, “But Gregg, it’s us!” I’d say, “I know but you scare me – you all scare me.”
‘There have been no complaints, apart from Penny Lancaster, about my behaviour since 2018, but my anxiety levels have been off the scale. My job requires big energy. You’re like a wound-up Tigger.
‘Your chances of tripping up are extraordinary. I reckon two or three times a week I’d go to the production office after work and ask, “Did I say anything wrong today?”
‘I’ll give you an example: recently John Torode said to this young fellow, “You’ve got really big chillies”. Then I said, “Don’t forget, John’s told you you’ve got big chillies.”
‘Afterwards I’m thinking, “That’s almost sexual. Will they think I’m referring to his testicles?”
‘I told Anna and my mother-in-law Rina what I said. I went over and over it. I was phoning the director in a panic in the evening. I couldn’t sleep. The anxiety was extraordinary because if I could get into trouble for calling someone attractive what else could I get into trouble for?’
Gregg now understands journalists contacted no fewer than 100 women. Early allegations were investigated by MasterChef management, who decided there was no case to answer until two women made complaints to the BBC of sexualised behaviour 18 years earlier, including the story about him walking naked around a busy studio with a sock on his penis.
The BBC advised the MasterChef production company Banijay UK to suspend Gregg and launch an independent investigation.
He was told on Zoom on November 26.
‘I didn’t realise the enormity of it because I thought I hadn’t done anything bad,’ says Gregg.
Two days later Banijay UK issued a statement inviting anyone with any concerns to contact it.
‘My world tumbled in,’ says Gregg. ‘At this point my name is being linked with Jimmy Savile and Huw Edwards. The abuse on social media is just phenomenal and the stuff hitting the papers was…’ He wells up.
‘I think it’s vital there are channels open for vulnerable people to complain if they are being bullied, harassed or made to feel uncomfortable, but the system hasn’t been perfected. It doesn’t work if the person is a public figure and everything becomes a public trial.
‘Crying out loud, I had no idea where all these people were coming from. Then I went completely wild and blamed it all on middle-class women. It was the biggest mistake but, by far, the best thing I could have done.’
Because, finally, a senior executive from MasterChef contacted Gregg.
‘He was the first person I’d spoken to in days. Nobody should be left on their own to face something like this. It’s very difficult to explain the pressure unless you’ve been through it. I thought about suicide all the time: “Is my insurance up to date? Will Anna get some money? She doesn’t deserve this. It would be better if I wasn’t here.”
‘The MasterChef exec said, “Mate, what are you doing?”
‘I told him I had to speak out because people were saying what they liked about me and it wasn’t true. I said, “It just keeps on and on. What am I supposed to do?”
Banijay UK arranged for a crisis mentor to support him. She was ‘the life raft’ he ‘clung to’, insisting he had a mental health screening. He was diagnosed with profound autism.
Those that know Gregg are not exactly surprised.
For years he had turned up in various production offices asking exactly what clothes he had to wear and when to expect mealtimes. His shirts had to be lined up in his dressing room and his trousers folded. He needs rules, structure.
His diary runs with the precision of the swanky Cartier watch on his wrist, setting out the time he cleans his teeth, the time he shaves, the time he goes to the gym and so on. There’s even a reminder to give Anna a ‘spontaneous’ hug.
Interviewers have been writing about his lack of a filter for years, while colleagues often tease him about being ‘odd’.
‘John and I had an argument over what was “travelling” and what was “going on holiday” because I couldn’t get a definitive answer. This has been going on for two years because so many of the contestants say they went travelling but, to me, it sounds like they’ve been on holiday.
‘The producers are like, “Mate, will you stay on the food?” I’m saying, “No. I need to know what constitutes travelling. How long were you away? How many hotels?’ John’s like, “Will you just f***ing drop it?”’
Quite how the BBC did not suspect Gregg, who is one of its most prolific stars, was neurodiverse or offer him any support is baffling.
Indeed, despite his obvious distress in recent months (he has said on Instagram he ‘wasn’t in a good head space’, ‘was under a huge amount of stress’ and felt ‘very alone’) he says that the BBC didn’t so much as lift up the phone to support him until a few weeks ago, when it sent an email to arrange a meeting to discuss his historic behaviour.
The email, from the BBC’s HR department, included the BBC Code of Conduct and the BBC values. Later that day they sent a second email with links to organisations such as the Samaritans, NHS mental health support lines and two suicide helplines.
‘Everything’s fine while everything’s fine and lots of people are making lots of money, but the moment that the wind starts to change, f*** me,’ says Gregg.
‘I didn’t know when I signed up to do a television show 20 years ago that this was how it was going to play out. If I had, there is no way I’d have put my name on that bit of paper. It hasn’t been worth it. You’re almost signing a pact with the devil.
‘I’d just like the people who are saying this stuff about me to come here for an evening – meet Anna, meet Sid, meet Rina – and realise there are human beings here. It is not just me going through this, it’s all of us, and I’m really struggling to understand the motivation for it.’
