Gregg Wallace went viral after lifting the lid on his usual Saturday routine in a schedule which involved a fry-up at the Harvester and hours playing historical war video games.
The MasterChef judge hit back at backlash over the amount of time he appeared to spend with his son, labelling the criticism ‘cruel,’ ‘nasty’ and ‘unfair’, adding that it left him ‘deeply saddened’.
His My Saturday column for The Telegraph outlined a busy day from waking up at 5am to being in bed for 8pm.
Gregg’s family featured heavily in his day – being made lunch by wife Anne-Marie ‘Anna’ Sterpini and playing with their son Sid.
So, who is Gregg’s wife Anne-Marie Sterpini?
Gregg Wallace and his wife, Anne-Marie ‘Anna’ Sterpini met on Twitter in 2013
They share a young son, Sid, who is non-verbal autistic
Gregg’s family life came under scrutiny when he detailed his Saturday routine, including two hours of ‘me time’ playing historical war video games
Who is Gregg Wallace’s wife Anne-Marie Sterpini and how did they meet?
Anne-Marie, who goes by Anna, is a caterer who first met Gregg on Twitter, querying one of his TV recipes.
She asked the former greengrocer if rhubarb really went with duck, as she saw him demonstrate on a cooking show.
Gregg recalled the interaction in 2015 to HELLO! Magazine: ‘I just looked at Anna’s photo and thought, “Wow, she’s pretty”. So yes, rhubarb, which was considered an aphrodisiac in medieval times, brought us together.’
That initial exchange came in 2013 – but Anna wasn’t sure if the TV chef was The One at first.
Speaking on ITV’s Lorraine, Gregg said: ‘I sent her a message and we started sending messages. Then I sent her my phone number.
‘She came down to London to have dinner with me, and she said it wasn’t until we got to the restaurant, that she was comfortable it was really me and not an impostor.
‘I think it’s just luck, and I got very lucky this time. Very lucky.’
Gregg admitted he was worried about the age gap, but said it never seemed to bother Anna – 21 years his junior.
Nevertheless he said he sometimes felt uncomfortable when people saw him holding his partner’s hand.
‘People look at you anyway and I felt really conscious because she was younger,’ he explained, ‘and I didn’t want people to judge her harshly. It was doing the ordinary things.’
When did Gregg Wallace and Anne-Marie Sterpini get married?
Gregg’s MasterChef co-judge John Torode was the foodie’s best man at his wedding to Anna
The pair were engaged in December 2014 and tied the knot at Hever Castle in Kent, on August 6, 2016
The pair were engaged in December 2014 and said ‘I do’ at Hever Castle in Kent, on August 6, 2016 – with fellow MasterChef judge John Torode as his co-star’s best man.
Anna is the foodie’s fourth wife, telling Lorraine that each of his previous marriages taught him something.
His first marriage came in 1991 to Christine, whose maiden name is unknown, and lasted just six weeks.
‘I would say don’t marry anyone because you are worried about losing your house,’ Gregg said.
‘So there is the first one. We bought a small house together in Bermondsey and then we broke up and I thought “Well this is terrible. What is going to happen to the house? I have worked so hard all my life, what is now going to happen?”‘
Gregg and his second wife, Denise, were married for five years and had two children together.
‘The third one was a huge mistake,’ Gregg confessed.
‘Probably the unhappiest I have ever been in my life but she was a teacher and was really good with the kids.’
Gregg also met his third wife, Heidi Brown, on Twitter. The biology teacher 17 years his junior asked him a question about celery on the platform, and things went from there.
How many children does Gregg Wallace have?
Gregg hit back at criticism of his article, saying that it was ‘cruel,’ ‘nasty’ and ‘unfair’, adding that it left him ‘deeply saddened’
Gregg said: ‘And the other thing as well – and I’m almost going to cry over this – people saying that Sid was unwanted. It took us two years to conceive with Sid. Two years’
Gregg has three children, from two of his four wives.
He and Denise had a son and a daughter – Tom and Libby – before having Sid much later in life with Anna.
He opened up about his reluctance to have another child in his 50s in his now-infamous diary, but said it was ‘what she [Anna] wanted and I love her’.
In July 2022, the MasterChef star revealed his young son has autism on an episode of Loose Women.
Another 18 months on, with Sid age four, Gregg wrote that while still non-verbal, his son had ‘started to seek company and show eye contact’.
X users ridiculed the My Saturday article for the amount of time explicitly allotted as time spent with Sid, but in response to the criticism, Gregg said: ‘I’m with my son in the house all the time.
‘I just didn’t write down “Had a tickle with Sid, playing around the living room” – you’re not logging every minute of the day. I just logged the blocks. So, it didn’t mean that’s all I saw him that day.
‘If you’re living in a house with someone, you’re interacting with them all the time. Not only that – that is a snapshot of one Saturday. I hope that makes sense to everybody.
‘And the other thing as well – and I’m almost going to cry over this – people saying that Sid was unwanted. It took us two years to conceive with Sid. Two years.’
