‘I will not go quietly,’ Gregg Wallace says amid reports he’s been sacked by the BBC
Former MasterChef host Gregg Wallace has vowed he will “not go quietly”, amid reports that he has been sacked by the BBC.
It comes after the TV host faced an investigation, commissioned by MasterChef’s production company Banijay UK, into alleged inappropriate behaviour while working for the BBC.
In November, the 60-year-old stepped back from presenting the cooking show after accusations that he made sexual comments towards staff and celebrity guests on a range of programmes over 17 years.
Gregg Wallace received an MBE for services to food and charity in 2023. Pic: PA
Broadcaster Kirsty Wark, author and actor Emma Kennedy, and presenter Kirstie Allsopp, were among the high-profile figures who made claims of inappropriate behaviour against Wallace.
In a statement, released ahead of the publication of the summary of a report into the claims, the 60-year-old said he had been “cleared of the most serious and sensational accusations” made against him.
However, he said the report, carried out by independent law firm Lewis Silkin, had found him “primarily guilty of inappropriate language between 2005 and 2018”.
Wallace’s statement, published on Instagram, came hours before the BBC News reported that 50 more people had made claims to the corporation against the presenter, including allegations he groped one MasterChef worker and pulled his trousers down in front of another.
In his statement, Wallace labelled BBC News’s claims as “uncorroborated tittle-tattle”.
Wallace wrote: “I have taken the decision to speak out ahead of the publication of the Silkin’s report – a decision I do not take lightly.
“But after 21 years of loyal service to the BBC, I cannot sit in silence while my reputation is further damaged to protect others.
“I have now been cleared by the Silkin’s report of the most serious and sensational accusations made against me.
“The most damaging claims (including from public figures which have not been upheld) were found to be baseless after a full and forensic six-month investigation.
“To be clear, the Silkin’s report exonerates me of all the serious allegations which made headlines last year and finds me primarily guilty of inappropriate language between 2005 and 2018.”
Gregg Wallace on MasterChef. Pic: BBC/ Shine TV 2024
‘I was hired as the cheeky greengrocer – now that’s a problem’
Wallace said he recognised that “some of my humour and language” was at times “inappropriate” and, for that, he apologised “without reservation”.
“But I was never the caricature now being sold for clicks,” Wallace, who also referred to his recent diagnosis of autism, added.
“I was hired by the BBC and MasterChef as the cheeky greengrocer. A real person with warmth, character, rough edges, and all.
“For over two decades, that authenticity was part of the brand. Now, in a sanitised world, that same personality is seen as a problem.”
Wallace and his partner Anna Wallace, pictured in 2014
Wallace: Complaints from ‘middle-class women of a certain age’
Shortly after the allegations first emerged, Wallace recorded a video where he dismissed his accusers as “middle-class women of a certain age”.
His remarks were met with huge criticism – including from Downing Street, where a spokesperson for the prime minister described them as “completely inappropriate and misogynistic”.
Wallace responded by posting a follow-up clip where he apologised and said he “wasn’t in a good space” when he posted the comments.
Wallace was replaced in the 20th season of MasterChef, which aired this spring, by restaurant critic and former I‘m A Celebrity contestant Grace Dent. Several Christmas episodes of the show were also pulled from the BBC’s 2024 festive schedule.
In April, Wallace spoke to the Daily Mail, denying all accusations against him and saying he had contemplated suicide following the allegations.
Wallace’s lawyers have previously called allegations that he engages in behaviour of a sexually harassing nature “entirely false”.
A spokesperson for the BBC said: “Banijay UK instructed the law firm Lewis Silkin to run an investigation into allegations against Gregg Wallace. We are not going to comment until the investigation is complete and the findings are published.”
A Banijay spokesperson told Sky News: “We won’t be commenting until our report is published.” They have signalled the report will be published later this week or next.
Banijay previously said Wallace is “committed to fully co-operating” with the external review.
Alongside MasterChef, Wallace presented Inside The Factory for BBC Two from 2015 to 2023.
He also featured on various BBC shows over the years, including Saturday Kitchen, Eat Well For Less, Supermarket Secrets, Celebrity MasterChef and MasterChef: The Professionals, as well as being a Strictly Come Dancing contestant in 2014.
More recently, Wallace has been promoting his health and lifestyle website, offering one-to-one coaching from both himself and a team of experts, which includes nutritionists and doctors, and his wife Anna in the role of recipe curator.
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK.
Disgraced hip hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs has asked a judge to release him on a $50m bond as he waits to be sentenced for prostitution-related offences.
Combs’s lawyer has argued that conditions at the Metropolitan Detention Centre in Brooklyn are dangerous and noted that others convicted of similar offences were typically released before sentencing.
“Sean Combs should not be in jail for this conduct,” Marc Agnifilo said in a court filing on Tuesday.
“In fact, he may be the only person currently in a United States jail for being any sort of John, and certainly the only person in jail for hiring adult male escorts for him and his girlfriend.”
A “John” in the US is a slang term for somebody who hires a prostitute.
A spokesperson for the US attorney’s office in Manhattan did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Prosecutors have previously insisted he remains a flight risk and should therefore not be granted bail.
The 55-year-old, one of the most influential hip-hop producers of all time, faces up to a decade in prison after he was convicted earlier this month of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution.
The charges relate to how he flew people around the US, including his girlfriends and male sex workers, for sexual encounters.
Read more:
The rise and fall of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs
What it was like in court for start of P Diddy trial
Combs knelt at his chair and appeared to pray after the verdicts
Combs was cleared of three more serious charges – two for sex trafficking and one for racketeering conspiracy – following his landmark trial in New York.
A conviction on one of those charges could have put him in prison for life.
Immediately after he was acquitted of those charges on 2 July, Mr Agnifilo had asked that Combs be released on bond.
But Judge Arun Subramanian denied it, saying Combs at the time had not met the burden of showing by clear and convincing evidence a “lack of danger to any person or the community”.
Combs is the latest celebrity inmate to be locked up at MDC Brooklyn, the only federal jail in New York City, joining a list that includes R Kelly, Ghislaine Maxwell and cryptocurrency fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried.
Ozzy Osbourne fans will be able to say goodbye to the heavy metal pioneer at a procession for his cortege through his home city of Birmingham tomorrow.
The star’s hearse will make its way down Broad Street towards the Black Sabbath bridge and bench – where thousands of fans have left flowers, messages and other tributes since his death.
Osbourne, 76, died less than three weeks after performing his “final bow” in the city – the Back The Beginning reunion with his Sabbath bandmates at Villa Park, which raised about £140m for charity.
Ozzy Osbourne on stage at Villa Park just a few weeks before his death. Pic: Reuters
Large crowds are expected to gather tomorrow as fans pay their respects to the performer who shaped heavy metal music and “proudly carried the spirit of Birmingham throughout his career”, the city council said.
Members of Osbourne’s family will also be in attendance and have funded the event, the council added.
“Ozzy was more than a music legend – he was a son of Birmingham,” said the city’s lord mayor, Councillor Zafar Iqbal. “We know how much this moment will mean to his fans. We’re proud to host it here with his loving family in the place where it all began.”
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The life of Ozzy Osbourne
Mr Iqbal said it was important to the city to give the star “a fitting, dignified tribute ahead of a private family funeral”.
Osbourne and his Black Sabbath bandmates Terence “Geezer” Butler, Tony Iommi and Bill Ward were awarded the Freedom of the City in June, before the Back To The Beginning show, honouring their “significance to the cultural and musical identity of Birmingham”.
The star’s cortege will travel down Broad Street from about 1pm tomorrow, accompanied by a live brass band, Bostin’ Brass. For those not able to make it, a live stream of the Black Sabbath bench, which has been running since Osbourne’s death, will continue.
There is also a book of condolence for public messages at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, alongside the Ozzy Osbourne Working Class Hero exhibition, highlighting his solo career achievements.
Metal, bats, and reality TV: The wild life of Ozzy Osbourne
Osbourne, the self-styled Prince of Darkness, pioneered heavy metal with Black Sabbath before going on to have huge success in his own right. He was famous for hits including Iron Man, Paranoid, War Pigs, Crazy Train and Changes, both with the band and as a solo star.
The singer also found a different kind of fame thanks to noughties MTV reality show The Osbournes, which followed his somewhat chaotic life with wife Sharon and two of their children, Kelly and Jack.
Following his death, his family released a statement saying he died alongside them, “surrounded by love”.
Entertainment
The 1975 star Matty Healy warns of musical ‘silence’ without small stages as he backs new UK-wide festival
The 1975 frontman Matty Healy has warned of a musical “silence” that would come without the pubs and bars that give UK artists their first chance to perform.
Fresh from headlining Glastonbury in June, Healy is backing a new UK-wide festival which will see more than 2,000 gigs taking place across more than 1,000 “seed” venues in September.
The Seed Sounds Weekender aims to celebrate the hospitality sector hosting bands and singers just as they are starting out – and for some, before they go on to become global superstars.
Healy, who is an ambassador for the event, said in a statement to Sky News: “Local venues aren’t just where bands cut their teeth, they’re the foundation of any real culture.
“Without them, you don’t get The Smiths, Amy Winehouse, or The 1975. You get silence.”
Oasis, currently making headlines thanks to their sold-out reunion tour, first played at Manchester’s Boardwalk club, which closed in 1999, and famously went on to play stadiums and their huge Knebworth gigs within the space of a few years.
Oasis stars Liam and Noel Gallagher, pictured on stage at Wembley for their reunion tour, started out playing Manchester’s Boardwalk club. Pic: Lewis Evans
GigPig, the live music marketplace behind Seed Sounds, says the seed sector collectively hosts more than three million gigs annually, supports more than 43,000 active musicians, and contributes an estimated £2.4bn to the UK economy.
“The erosion of funding for seed and grassroots spaces is part of a wider liberal tendency to strip away the socially democratic infrastructure that actually makes art possible,” said Healy.
“What’s left is a cultural economy where only the privileged can afford to create, and where only immediately profitable art survives.”
He described the Seed Sounds Weekender as “a vital reminder that music doesn’t start in boardrooms or big arenas – it starts in back rooms, pubs, basements, and independent spaces run on love, grit, and belief in something bigger.”
Read more from Sky News:
Oasis photographers recall the early days
Heavy metal to reality TV: The wild life of Ozzy Osbourne
The importance of funding for grassroots venues has been highlighted in the past few years, with more than 200 closing or stopping live music in 2023 and 2024, according to the Music Venue Trust. Sheffield’s well-known Leadmill venue saw its last gig in its current form in June, after losing a long-running eviction battle.
In May, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy announced the £85m Creative Foundations Fund to support arts venues across England.
And last year, the Culture, Media and Sport Committee called for a levy on tickets to large concerts at stadiums and arenas to help fund grassroots venues, which artists including Coldplay and Katy Perry, and venues including the Royal Albert Hall, have backed.
But most seed venues – the smaller spaces in the hospitality sector that provide a platform before artists get to ticketed grassroots gigs or bigger stages – won’t qualify for the levy. GigPig is working to change this by formalising the seed music venue space as a recognised category.
“The UK’s seed venues are where music careers are born,” said GigPig co-founder Kit Muir-Rogers. “Collectively, this space promotes more music than any other in the live music business, yet it has gone overlooked and under-appreciated.”
The Seed Sounds Weekender takes place from 26-28 September and will partner with Uber to give attendees discounted rides to and from venues.
Tickets for most of the gigs will be free, with events taking place across 20 UK towns and cities including London, Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, Leicester, Newcastle and Southampton
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