Gregg Wallace has been dealt a fresh blow as one of his business partners has distanced itself from him after a probe was launched into his behaviour on MasterChef.
Loughborough University said it had ‘no planned activities’ with the BBC presenter, 60, who was announced as its official academic research partner in January.
The university’s spokesperson said in a statement shared with Metro: ‘The University has no planned activities with Gregg Wallace whilst the allegations against him are investigated.’
It was the second project involving Wallace that has been paused today after the BBC announced it was officially pulling the MasterChef Christmas specials.
‘In the current circumstances we have decided not to broadcast them,’ a spokespeson said.
Yesterday, Wallace apologised after saying complaints about his alleged misconduct came from ‘middle-class women of a certain age’ sparking wide-spread backlash including from prime minister Sir Keir Starmer.
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The TV host said he was ‘under a huge amount of stress’ and felt ‘alone and under siege’ when he made the ill-judged remarks on Instagram.
It came after it was announced he had stepped away from MasterChef while historical allegations of misconduct are investigated from 13 people over a 17 year period.
Wallace facing various accusations of making ‘inappropriate sexual jokes’, asking for the phone numbers of female members of production staff, and undressing in front of and standing ‘too close’ to women working on his shows.
It’s also claimed that he ‘mimicked sex acts’ and walked around the studio almost ‘completely naked’, with stars including the likes of Kirsty Wark and Ulrika Jonsson speaking out about their experiences with him.
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Further allegations accuse Wallace of groping three women in different incidents.
It’s been claimed concerns were raised over Wallace’s alleged inappropriate behaviour several years ago on a BBC programme, but they were reportedly ignored.
Wallace and his lawyers have denied the allegations, saying ‘it is entirely false that he engages in behaviour of a sexually harassing nature’.
Pre-recorded episodes of MasterChef are still airing, with one on BBC One scheduled for this evening and two more next week.
A BBC spokesperson said: ‘As we have said, MasterChef is an amazing competition which is life-changing for the chefs taking part and the current series of MasterChef: The Professionals is continuing as planned.’
They said the Christmas specials had been pulled from the schedules as ‘they are obviously a different type of show.’
However, Labour MP Rupa Huq has called on the broadcaster to act further, and warned that the show could be ‘massively triggering’ for other women.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the politician, who sits on the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport committee, she said: ‘I think there is an argument for pausing while this investigation takes its course, and maybe not airing it tonight.’
She suggested it would ‘send a strong message that this kind of behaviour is not acceptable’ if the current running series of MasterChef: The Professionals was paused.
She added: ‘I mean, it could be massively triggering for the women involved. In fact, any woman involved in any type of similar incident.’
She said that though Gregg has ‘stopped presenting’, ‘to the casual viewer, if it’s on TV tonight, it looks like he got away with it.
‘I think the BBC should send a strong signal that this sort of behaviour… we need to let the investigation do its work but at the same time, if he’s being dangled on our screens when all this is going on, I think at the moment, maybe pause it.’
Huq added: ‘I don’t think the BBC should hide behind the production company either. They should expect high standards from their suppliers if that’s the contractual relationship.’
She continued: ‘To the average viewer, they don’t know where that programme came from, I’m a big BBC defender and I don’t want to get into BBC bashing, it’s known worldwide, my cousins in Bangladesh always say they listen to the BBC when they want to hear the truth.
‘I feel that if you let this programme go out, it sends a signal that it is okay, so in the strongest possible terms, if it was taken off for now and let the investigation run its course, it would send a strong message that this kind of behaviour is not acceptable.’
Huq’s comments come after a former producer, who previously worked on MasterChef and another BBC programme, said concerns about Wallace were raised but ignored after he allegedly undressed in front of colleagues and ‘made inappropriate sexual jokes’.
Georgia Harding, who worked on the cooking competition between 2014 and 2015, and then for Eat Well For Less, said she raised concerns about the way in which Wallace treated contributors on Eat Well For Less, but there ‘appeared to be an acceptance of his behaviour’ and ‘nothing was done’.
She told The Telegraph: ‘It was like, “Oh that’s Gregg”.’
She claimed he appeared ‘too close’ to some contestants on set, and would ‘get changed’ there despite having a dressing room.
She also said he ‘spoke about sex a lot’ and would ‘show off his “muscles”,’ adding: ‘It made us feel uncomfortable.’
Another anonymous woman told the publication that Wallace was ‘too close’ to her on set and made ‘inappropriate’ comments about sex.
She also alleged that he once told her and other people that they should be laughing at one of his jokes because he was the ‘talent’.
In response to the allegations, a BBC source told Metro: ‘While we are not going to comment on individuals or any internal HR processes, particularly when there is an ongoing process in place being run by Banijay who have the direct contractual relationship with Gregg Wallace, it would be wrong to report the BBC has done nothing if or when matters have been raised with us – not least because it is already being widely reported there were interventions in both 2017 and 2018 where action was taken.
‘We continue to urge caution about pre-judging any of this, particularly the involvement of BBC staff members and any inference they have not acted appropriately.’
In a statement, a BBC spokesperson also said: ‘We take any issues that are raised with us seriously and we have robust processes in place to deal with them. We are always clear that any behaviour which falls below the standards expected by the BBC will not be tolerated.
‘Where an individual is contracted directly by an external production company we share any complaints or concerns with that company and we will always support them when addressing them.
‘It would be inappropriate for us to comment on anything that could form part of Banijay’s ongoing investigation or otherwise influence it.’
In a post on Sunday, Wallace addressed the allegations, saying they came from ‘middle-class women of a certain age’.
In a video on Instagram, he said: ‘I’ve been doing MasterChef for 20 years, amateur, celebrity and professional MasterChef, and in that time, I have worked with over 4,000 contestants of all different ages, different backgrounds, all walks of life.
‘Apparently now, I’m reading in the paper, there’s been 13 complaints in that time.
‘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.’
In a second video, he added: ‘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?’
He then claimed ‘absolutely none’ of the people he had worked with on his shows had made a complaint about him in a third Instagram video.
Wallace later apologised for his comments after immense backlash, saying: ‘I want to apologise for any offence that I caused with my post yesterday and any upset I may have caused to a lot of people. I wasn’t in a good head space when I posted it.
‘I’ve been under a huge amount of stress, a lot of emotion, I felt very alone, under siege when I posted it.
‘It’s obvious to me I need to take some time out now while this investigation is underway.
‘I hope you understand and I do hope that you will accept this apology.’
This comes after The Sunday Times reported that BBC executive Kate Phillips raised concerns Wallace’s behaviour was ‘unacceptable and cannot continue’.
The intervention came after broadcaster and former Celebrity MasterChef contestant Aasmah Mir complained about inappropriate comments during filming.
The newspaper claimed he received another warning the following year after a complaint was raised about his behaviour on the quiz show Impossible Celebrities.
The former greengrocer was also accused of making lewd comments and asking for the personal phone numbers of female production staff in a letter that Dawn Elrick, a producer and director, claimed to have sent to the BBC in 2022.
The letter, posted on her S**t Men In TV Have Said To Me Instagram account said she had received a number of reports of ‘lewd comments’ and female production staff being ‘made to feel uncomfortable about being asked for their personal numbers’, and asked to speak to Wallace while he was topless.
Elrick told the Observer, the letter had been submitted with the support of industry union Bectu, and added she also submitted the allegations to the corporation via Navex Global, an external whistleblowing service.
She claimed the BBC suggested each individual would have to make their own, direct complaint to the corporation, and said she had received no further contact with regards to the report.
Wallace’s lawyers say ‘it is entirely false that he engages in behaviour of a sexually harassing nature’.
In response to the letter, a BBC spokesperson said it had ‘robust processes’ to deal with complaints ‘swiftly and appropriately’ and added it ‘will always listen if people want to make us aware of something directly’.
Further accusations were levelled against the TV presenter on Friday in publications including The Sun about other alleged behaviour, while several other stars have spoken out.
Celebrity MasterChef contestant Emma Kennedy claimed she witnessed Wallace groping a camera assistant during a 2012 photo shoot.
In a recent statement, she said: ‘They knew then. They knew before then and they’ve known since.’
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Kennedy said the photographer had a ‘young female assistant’ who was ‘bent over’ while dealing with equipment. She went on to say how he ‘took this as an opportunity to feel her arse. I told him it was inappropriate, I informed production.’
After refusing to return to the show, she claims that she complained but ‘nothing was said, nothing was done.’
Former contestant Dr Kate Tomas has also accused him of sexual harassment while she was on MasterChef in 2008.
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Allegations were also raised by staff members about Wallace’s behaviour on Channel 5’s Gregg Wallace’s Big Weekends to BBC News, with producer Rumpus Media saying it would be investigating allegations of ‘inappropriate behaviour’.
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