Gregg Wallace #

Introduction #

Gregg Wallace is an English broadcaster and former greengrocer who presented the BBC cooking competition MasterChef for two decades until the corporation announced in July 2025 that it would no longer work with him. The decision followed an investigation, led by a law firm, which found that 45 of 83 allegations made against him during his time on the show between 2005 and 2018 were substantiated, the majority relating to “inappropriate sexual language and humour” and one involving unwelcome physical contact. He had stepped away from hosting in late 2024 while the investigation was under way, and that December drew an angry backlash after claiming the complaints came from “a handful of middle-class women of a certain age” — a remark he later apologised for. He has strongly denied the most serious claims and maintained that none were upheld, while the BBC apologised and said his return to MasterChef was untenable.

Background Information #

Wallace, who was 60 when the BBC cut ties with him, is an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). He fronted MasterChef — made by the independent production company Banijay UK — for around 20 years, and it remains one of the BBC’s most popular and long-running competition shows. Complaints about his behaviour long predated the 2024 allegations. The Guardian reported that a BBC executive told him in 2017 that his behaviour was “unacceptable and cannot continue”, and that he received a warning in 2018 after a complaint about his conduct on the quiz show Impossible Celebrities, with a formal HR investigation concluding that “many aspects of [Wallace’s] behaviour were both unacceptable and unprofessional”. A 2022 letter containing several allegations was sent to the BBC but did not prompt further investigation at the time. He had also stood down from Inside the Factory after staff at a Nestlé factory in York complained he made inappropriate comments about the weight of female employees.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation #

The allegations became public in late November 2024, when Wallace announced he was stepping back from MasterChef while Banijay UK conducted an external review into his conduct. BBC News reported that 13 people had made allegations about his conduct over a 17-year period. The broadcaster Kirsty Wark, who appeared on Celebrity MasterChef, said he told “sexualised” jokes during filming in 2011 that made people uncomfortable. Other claims included 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 was not wearing boxer shorts under his jeans; some accusations dated back 19 years, including that he regularly made sexually explicit remarks on set in 2005 and 2006. Women who worked on his other shows, including Gregg Wallace’s Big Weekends and Eat Well for Less?, also alleged he regularly behaved inappropriately. Wallace’s lawyers said it was entirely false to suggest he engages in behaviour of a sexually harassing nature.

Wallace responded in an Instagram video, saying: “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.” He also claimed that “absolutely none” of the staff on his other shows had complained about him. The video drew an angry backlash, and Banijay UK said Wallace would step away from his role while the review continued and was “committed to fully cooperating throughout the process”.

Public Reaction and Consequences #

The findings, published on 14 July 2025, substantiated 45 of the 83 allegations made against Wallace, the majority relating to “inappropriate sexual language and humour”, with one incident including unwelcome physical contact. The BBC said his “return to MasterChef is untenable” and that it had “no plans to work with him in future”, adding: “Although the full extent of these issues were not known at the relevant time, opportunities were missed to address this behaviour, both by the production companies running MasterChef and the BBC.” The report also found little or no formal training or clear escalation procedures for staff — many working on the show were freelancers — leading to under-reporting and a normalisation of inappropriate behaviour. Downing Street welcomed the BBC severing its ties with Wallace, saying “appropriate steps must be taken to ensure abuses of power are prevented from happening in the future”.

Wallace said in a statement that he was “deeply sorry for any distress” his behaviour had caused. “Some of my humour and language missed the mark. I never set out to harm or humiliate,” he said. In a statement posted on Instagram before the report’s publication, he had written: “I will not go quietly. I will not be cancelled for convenience. I was tried by media and hung out to dry well before the facts were established.”

Current Status #

In January 2026, Wallace issued a public apology in a lengthy Substack post for his “middle-class women of a certain age” remark, admitting it was made in anger and fear rather than conviction. “It was a stupid, defensive and arrogant thing to say,” he wrote. “It’s not what I truly believe, and I’m sorry for what I said.” He continued to defend much of his studio behaviour, arguing the innuendo on MasterChef was “no worse” than that heard on The Great British Bake Off, and gave his own account of the upheld findings, saying the three undress-related incidents had innocent explanations and that in the unwanted-contact case, “I believed it was consensual”. He is pursuing a £10,000 damages claim against the BBC. MasterChef is set to continue with Grace Dent and Anna Haugh as hosts.

Impact on Their Career/Life #

The investigation ended Wallace’s two-decade run on MasterChef and his long association with the BBC, with the corporation stating that working with him again was untenable. The report’s conclusion that opportunities were missed by both the production companies and the BBC placed his case at the centre of a wider argument about how the creative industries handle complaints — a point made by the chair of the UK Parliament’s culture, media and sport committee, Caroline Dinenage, who said complainants still find it easier to take allegations to the press than to use internal processes. For Wallace himself, the consequences are the loss of his flagship programme, 45 upheld findings, an apology he has since issued for his own words, and an unresolved legal claim against the BBC — even as he continues to insist he was “tried by media” before the facts were established.