{"id":2233208,"date":"2026-01-13T17:26:40","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T17:26:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2233208"},"modified":"2026-01-13T17:26:40","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T17:26:40","slug":"i-endured-gregg-wallaces-behaviour-i-dont-accept-his-apology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/i-endured-gregg-wallaces-behaviour-i-dont-accept-his-apology\/","title":{"rendered":"I endured Gregg Wallace’s behaviour \u2013 I don’t accept his ‘apology’"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\t\tGregg Wallace was accused of groping three women (Picture: Ken McKay\/ITV\/REX\/Shutterstock)<\/p>\n

After more than a year of controversy, a failed claim against the BBC<\/a>, and being sacked from MasterChef<\/a>, Gregg Wallace<\/a> has issued a public apology<\/a> for making some contentious comments about his accusers. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s too little, too late if you ask me.<\/p>\n

When Wallace was initially accused of inappropriate sexual behaviour in 2024, the TV host took to his Instagram<\/a> to say that the allegations had come from \u2018middle-class women of a certain age.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

He has now acknowledged the harm of his words, writing on his Substack blog last week that his remarks were \u2018hurtful and wrong\u2019, and that his workplace persona was merely \u2018matching the culture that was engineered from the top down\u2019. <\/p>\n

But if the allegations about his actions are true, Wallace\u2019s behaviour has made so many feel uncomfortable and humiliated, and nothing about that could be considered a \u2018joke.\u2019<\/p>\n

I certainly wasn\u2019t laughing in 2013 when I had a personal experience with Wallace. <\/p>\n

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I was sitting in a photo studio, working as a junior writer at a magazine in London<\/a>, and Gregg Wallace, who was on our cover, was glaring at me.<\/p>\n

\u2018That was a joke, you\u2019re supposed to laugh.\u2019<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t remember what exactly he had said, but what I do know is: it wasn\u2019t funny.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was a sexist remark, wrapped up as a \u2018joke\u2019 so unfunny that not even me, a people pleaser who laughs easily at\u00a0a lot\u00a0of inappropriate jokes (when they\u2019re actually funny) could muster a laugh.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

He then turned to a more senior member of the team, and said, \u2018Can\u2019t you make her laugh?\u2019 <\/p>\n

This time his tone was more jovial, but there was an undercurrent to it and\u00a0his\u00a0behaviour throughout that day was: I have the power, you\u2019ll do as I am told.<\/p>\n

It was my first experience working with celebrities and I was excited to be a part of it all, but the day itself was deeply uncomfortable.<\/p>\n

Alongside the sexist remarks,\u00a0I was told\u00a0Wallace also refused to wear underwear, leaving us uncomfortable.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\"Television\t<\/div>\n

\t\tWallace presented Inside the Factory: How Our Favourite Foods Are Made (Picture: BBC\/Voltage TV\/Alice Harper)<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t speak up because I was so conditioned by society to believe that his behaviour was \u2018no big deal.\u2019 I know better now, but still, to be honest, I have felt nervous about opening myself up to criticism with people saying I\u2019m making a fuss over nothing.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve since gone on to interview and shoot with many more celebrities, in my career working for women\u2019s glossies and Wallace\u2019s attitude was by far the worst.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

There were other things, too: overfamiliarity with other women on set that I witnessed. That is not my story to tell.<\/p>\n

In 2024, a BBC News investigation<\/a> heard from 13 people who have worked with him over the years<\/a> have accused him of making inappropriate sexual comments, and allegations that he groped three women<\/a> on and off the set have been reported.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And, since I shared my memories of the presenter on my social media, my inbox has been full of other 00s journalists sharing their own stories about the presenter.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s only in the wake of all this that I\u2019ve begun to reflect more deeply on that shoot, seeing it as less of a celebrity anecdote to tell at parties, and more as a vile incident that shouldn\u2019t have been allowed to happen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\"MasterChef\t<\/div>\n

\t\tWallace has presented various iterations of Masterchef for 20 years (Picture: BBC\/Shine TV)<\/p>\n

But it was 13 years ago, and I say that not as an excuse for\u00a0his\u00a0behaviour but instead as a reason why afterwards (as far as I am aware) there were no complaints made against him.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was a time of \u2018put up, and shut up.\u2019 <\/p>\n

Being groped was a \u2018compliment\u2019.<\/p>\n

Since 2003 it has been illegal to touch someone sexually without their consent, and groping is considered, under the sexual offences act, a serious crime.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But still, it was the general consensus back then, that this sort of behaviour was just part of the fabric of life.<\/p>\n

Add, on top of that, the fact that he was a celebrity, with power,\u00a0of course\u00a0I wasn\u2019t going to say anything. We all just tried our best to keep out of his way.<\/p>\n

And afterwards we sat around and spoke of how vile he was, with the stylist fretting about how she would return the clothes he had worn without underwear on<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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I don\u2019t blame any of us for not speaking up, as it was, at the time, behaviour that was seen as simply unpleasant but also not something worth \u2018kicking up a fuss over\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The allegations against Wallace have kept coming<\/a>. Each one I read has a flavour of what I witnessed that day. One woman, who accused Wallace of groping her on MasterChef, said that she felt she\u2019d had her \u2018card marked\u2019 after letting him know she was disgusted.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, we finally have an apology. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\"\"\t<\/div>\n

\t\tWallace defended himself in a video he posted on Instagram and blamed \u2018middle-class women of a certain age\u2019\u00a0(Picture: Instagram\/Gregg Wallace)<\/p>\n

As women, we\u2019re raised to develop a thick skin, to plaster on a smile, fake a laugh and pretend that the things that make us feel deeply uncomfortable are normal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I grew up in a culture that\u2019s allowed men who behave inappropriately<\/a> to thrive, simply by encouraging us to look the other way. This\u00a0has\u00a0to change. It\u2019s not just on those who experience harassment or abuse to call it out, but also those who witness it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A version of this piece was originally published in December 2024<\/p>\n

Do you have a story you\u2019d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk<\/a>.<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Share your views in the comments below.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Degrees of Separation<\/h4>\n

Join us each week as hear from the people going through familial estrangement, for worse and for better.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source metro.co.uk \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gregg Wallace was accused of groping three women (Picture: Ken McKay\/ITV\/REX\/Shutterstock) After more than a year of controversy, a failed claim against the BBC, and being sacked from MasterChef, Gregg Wallace has issued a public apology for making some contentious comments about his accusers. It\u2019s too little, too late if you ask me. When Wallace […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2114534,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[25507,21741,390569,345966,309693,395231,314353,21913],"class_list":["post-2233208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-bbc","tag-entertainment","tag-first-person","tag-gregg-wallace","tag-masterchef","tag-real-life","tag-sexual-harassment","tag-tv"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Ive-worked-with-a-lot-of-celebrities-Gregg-Wallace.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2233208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2233208"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2233208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2233209,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2233208\/revisions\/2233209"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2114534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2233208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2233208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2233208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}