BBC ends ties with MasterChef host Gregg Wallace after investigation

LONDON – The BBC said on July 14 that it would stop working with Gregg Wallace, a mainstay of the network and the long-time host of its hit television show MasterChef (1990 to present), after an investigation substantiated dozens of sexual misconduct allegations against him.

Of the 83 allegations made against him, 45 were upheld, the broadcaster said. These included three instances of him being “in a state of undress” and one of unwelcome physical contact.

The majority of claims against Wallace, who hosted the show for 19 years, involve “inappropriate sexual language and humour”, but the probe also found allegations of culturally and racially insensitive comments.

The investigation, conducted by the law firm Lewis Silkin, involved interviews with 78 witnesses over seven months. It covered incidents between 2005 and 2024.

The volume and consistency of the substantiated allegations made Wallace’s return to the hit cooking show untenable, according to a statement from Banijay, the production company behind the show.

Wallace, 60, denied many of the allegations in a statement posted on Instagram.

On July 14, he wrote: “I am deeply sorry for any distress caused.” He also said that “some of his humour and language missed the mark”, adding: “A late autism diagnosis has helped me understand how I communicate and how I’m perceived. I’m still learning.”

In a different statement posted on Instagram last week that was deleted on July 14, he wrote that he had been hired as the “cheeky greengrocer” – a role that included his warmth and rough edges.

“Now,” he said, “in a sanitised world, that same personality is seen as a problem.”

Banijay ordered the investigation in December 2024 after the BBC reported that multiple women had accused Wallace of inappropriate conduct. Most of the complaints occurred between 2005 and 2018.

The BBC said in a statement that Wallace’s behaviour “falls below the values of the BBC and the expectations we have for anyone who works with or for us”. The broadcaster added that it had missed opportunities to address his behaviour earlier, and it accepted that more could and should have been done sooner.

In his deleted post, Wallace also said the BBC did nothing to investigate his disability or to provide protections for him because of it. In 2024, he brushed off the claims of inappropriate behaviour as coming from “middle-class women of a certain age”.

The Lewis Silkin investigation found little or no training to be in place for handling inappropriate workplace behaviour before 2016, and said that concerns taken to the production company were often handled informally.

Shannon Kyle, the ghostwriter of Wallace’s 2012 autobiography, told BBC Newsnight in 2024 that while they were working on his book, he had once answered the door wearing only a towel, which he later dropped, and that he touched her thigh and buttocks inappropriately.

The BBC said on July 14 that it was not ready to make a final decision on whether it would broadcast the MasterChef series that was filmed in 2024 with him as a presenter. NYTIMES