Ex-Celebrity MasterChef star blasts ‘lazy and entitled’ Gregg Wallace as she claims presenter ‘wasn’t taken to task enough’ by BBC
Channel 4 star Aggie MacKenzie has slammed “lazy and entitled” Gregg Wallace as she shared her personal experience of working with the disgraced MasterChef presenter.
Wallace, 60, is facing mounting allegations against him for “inappropriate behaviour” by several women, which he dismissed as a “handful of middle class women of a certain age”.
In a furious rant, posted on Instagram, Wallace fumed: “Apparently now, I’m reading in the paper, there’s been 13 complaints in that time. Can you imagine how many women, female contestants, on MasterChef have made sexual remarks or sexual innuendo?”
Speaking to GB News, How Clean Is Your House? star Aggie MacKenzie spoke of her time on Celebrity MasterChef in 2011, and how Wallace was “unable to have an adult conversation” on set.
MacKenzie revealed: “I was very much looking forward to being on the show and I took it terribly seriously. But in terms of Gregg Wallace, from the beginning, he was somebody who just told these stupid jokes that weren’t at all funny.
“And I realised that actually, after a while, this this was all he was able to do. He wasn’t able to have any kind of adult conversations or know how to talk to anybody.
“It was as if he was filling in the time with these stupid jokes, and I just found his worst offence was being boring, actually.”
Discussing the allegations made against him, MacKenzie suggested that Wallace “wasn’t taken to task enough” by the BBC at the time other historic complaints were made.
She explained: “He’s done very well for the BBC, and I think probably what’s happened is that the show was such a major success, it’s made so much money for the BBC all over the world – why would they rock the boat and say anything?
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“I understand that he has been cautioned on a number of occasions, but a leopard can’t change its spots, and I think that’s probably what’s happened. He hasn’t really been taken to task strongly enough to change his behaviour.”
When pressed by host Mark Dolan on whether she personally experienced or witnessed any inappropriate behaviour, MacKenzie stated: “I can’t honestly say that I did ever witness him behaving really inappropriately towards anybody.”
However, the TV star admitted that the allegations made against him are “not surprising”. She added: “I was there 13 years ago, it’s a long time between then and now for somebody to whose behaviour could become a lot worse.”
Questioned on Wallace’s behaviour on set, MacKenzie delivered a scathing verdict of the star, and recalled how he dismissed her when she was eliminated from Celebrity MasterChef.
MacKenzie revealed: “He came across to me as somebody who was quite entitled, quite sort of lazy, didn’t really make any effort with the contestants – and these are the celebs, so goodness knows what it’s like with ordinary people.
“On the day that I was kicked off, I went around the production team said goodbye and thank you to everyone. I said goodbye to John, he was very gracious, and I thought, oh, where’s Gregg? I’ll say goodbye to him.
“And I passed an open door, he was in an office and he had his feet up on the desk, on the phone. I said ‘I’m off now’, and he went ‘yeah, whatever’. And I thought, oh, I’ll remember that. I’ll hold that grudge.”
MasterChef production company Banijay UK has “committed to fully co-operating throughout the process” and called on anyone who has a complaint against Wallace to come forward.
They advise anyone with an issue to speak to legal firm Lewis Silkin, who are heading up the investigation.
A spokesperson assured: “All information will be handled sensitively, and names of those providing evidence to the team will be kept confidential.”