Fresh allegations against Gregg Wallace have surfaced from another former contestant on Celebrity Masterchef. How Clean Is Your House? star Aggie Mackenzie has accused Wallace, 60, of being a dinosaur after telling ‘endless’ jokes which were ‘smutty’ when she appeared on the show in 2011.
Mackenzie, 69, said she agreed with everything Kirstie Wark said, after the Newsnight presenter appeared on the same series of Celebrity Masterchef. Wark said he told ‘sexualised’ jokes during filming.
BBC News sent a letter to Wallace’s representatives last week setting out allegations of inappropriate sexual comments by 13 people who worked with him across a range of shows over a 17-year period. Wallace has since stepped down, but hit out at his accusers, who he said were a ‘handful of middle-class women of a certain age’.
Mackenzie told Good Morning Britain: “I agree with everything Kirstie says. Those jokes weren’t directed aimed at me, but the jokes were always smutty. They were endless – it was like Gregg was some kind of dinosaur who couldn’t read the room and seemed to be allowed to carry on in this way. I actually can’t listen to his voice now, it just triggers something in me. It’s horrible, actually.”
When asked if she felt she was one of the ‘women of a certain age’ Wallace had taken aim at, Mackenzie replied: “Again, this just shows how he has no insight or understanding of how he behaves. He just doesn’t get it. He’s been allowed to carry on in his own sweet way for many, many years.
“He could have remedied his behaviour, but I don’t think he was actually capable of doing that. It’s part of his personality. It never was okay. As far as I’m concerned, his worst crime was being really, really boring. It was as if he didn’t know how to hold a conversation so he used to fill up the space with nonsense. I don’t think he knew how to talk to anybody.”
Aggie told Times Radio that Wallace and presenter John Torode would rarely communicate and stand at separate ends of the room when the cameras stopped rolling.
The BBC has been accused of ignoring at least five warnings over seven years regarding Wallace’s behaviour. The broadcaster conducted an HR investigation in 2018 and had multiple discussions with the star regarding inappropriate comments.
A BBC spokesperson said: “We take any issues that are raised with us seriously and we have robust processes in place to deal with them.
“We stand firm on our approach to misconduct with clear-cut procedures ready to tackle such issues. We are always clear that any behaviour which falls below the standards expected by the BBC will not be tolerated.”
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.
On Sunday, Wallace told his more than 200,000 followers: “I’ve been doing MasterChef for 20 years – amateur, professional and Celebrity MasterChef – and I think in that time I have worked with over 4,000 contestants of all different ages, all different backgrounds, all walks of life.
“And apparently now, I’m reading in the paper, there’s been 13 complaints in that time. Now, 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 finished his statement by saying: “In 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?”