MasterChef presenter Gregg Wallace denies allegations of sexual misconduct. In an interview with tabloid The Sun, he says he is “not a groper, sexual bully or exhibitionist.”
Wallace was fired as presenter of the cooking program due to an internal investigation into the allegations. According to the investigation, 45 of the 83 complaints were founded.
“I know I’ve said things that have offended people… I understand that now. And I am so sorry to anyone I have hurt,” Wallace says. According to him, one of the incidents he is under fire for took place with mutual consent. “She gave me her phone number. I regarded that as intimacy. It was fifteen years ago. Me, drunk, at a party, with my hand on a girl’s bottom,” Wallace said.
He also says in the interview that he once appeared in the MasterChef studio with a sock on his genitals and that the four colleagues who saw it happen were “amused or bewildered” but not upset. The presenter says he hasn’t dared to appear in public for a while: “I now go out in disguise, with a baseball cap and sunglasses. I don’t want people to see me. I’m scared.”
In addition to Wallace, presenter and television chef John Torode was also fired after being criticized for racist language.
The BBC will broadcast the previously recorded season of the British program MasterChef with the controversial presenters Wallace and Torode from August 6.