Gregg Wallace has apologised for offences caused by his alleged misconduct on the set of Masterchef, but says “there never were any accusations of sexual harassment."
The former Masterchef presenter told The Sun: "There’s so much that I want to say, and so much that I want to put right, if I can."
“I’m not saying I’m not guilty of stuff, but so much has been perceived incorrectly. Things that really hurt me and hurt my family.”
“People think I’ve been taking my trousers down and exposing myself — I am not a flasher. People think I’m a sex pest. I am not. I am not sexist or a misogynist, or any of it."
“There never were any accusations of sexual harassment."
“I have seen myself written about in the same sentence as Jimmy Savile and Huw Edwards, paedophiles and sex offenders. That is just so, so horrific.”
“I have learnt a lot about myself over the past eight months or so, and I’m still learning."
“I know I have said things that offended people, that weren’t socially acceptable and perhaps they felt too intimidated or nervous to say anything at the time. I understand that now — and to anyone I have hurt, I am so sorry."
“I don’t expect anyone to have any sympathy with me but I don’t think I am a wrong ’un.”
A report, commissioned by MasterChef's production company Banijay UK and conducted by independent law firm Lewis Silkin, looked into allegations of inappropriate behaviour by the presenter, revealing 45 'substantiated' complaints against the BBC star out of 83 highlighted.
In response to these findings, Wallace saidI: “I’ve worked with around 4,000 people — cast, crew, production — which means 0.5 per cent of people found fault with me."
“That means in a room of 200 people, one person complained about my knob joke."
"It sounds a lot, but you have to consider that I don’t work in an office.”
Regarding one upheld claim that he allegedly groped a woman, Wallace said: “It was 15 years ago. Me, drunk, at a party, with my hand on a girl’s bum."
“This girl told me about an affair she was having with a married man who was part of the Conservative government. I can’t remember who it was."
“She gave me her phone number. I considered that to be intimacy. I was single at the time . . . well, I was dating, but I wasn’t married. Now, even in the report, it says, ‘Gregg believes this contact to be consensual’. So, listen, drag me out into the marketplace and stone me now.”
On another upheld complaint, which alleges Wallace walked around the show’s set naked with a sock on his penis, the former presenter said: “Yes, that’s one of the three upheld, the one with a sock on. Can I clarify what that is though? That was 18 years ago. The studio is shut, there’s no contestants.”
Mr Wallace said that outside his dressing-room door was a sofa with four of his friends from Masterchef seated on it, including Monica Galetti.
He said: “I was getting changed to go to a black tie event, a charity event. I put my bow tie on and my shirt. It’s only them outside the door. I put the sock on, opened the door, went, ‘Wahey!’ and shut the door again."
“The people interviewed were either amused or bemused. Nobody was distressed.”
Wallace again blamed his misconduct on difficulties relating to younger staff members on Masterchef, a claim he previously made in an interview with the Daily Mail in April.
He adds: “They told me about how to interact with young people."
“My problem was that I saw myself the same as them, but they weren’t perceiving me the same as them. They saw me as a position of authority."
"So I was being too familiar and I was told I shouldn’t try to talk to them about what they might be doing at the weekend or where they’re going on holiday because I might be forcing them to converse with me on personal details that they might not want to give."
“And I didn’t know I was autistic at the time. So all that did was just confuse the living daylights out of me. So from that point on, I just stopped talking to young people because I realised that I was working in a complaints culture."
“And if I could get in serious trouble for telling a girl she was attractive, what would happen if I went out drinking with people and said something political or sexual?
“So I just stopped talking to young people. In fact, I stopped socialising on MasterChef. It just panicked me.”
Since the allegations became public, Wallace says he has been scared to go out “in case people, who think I’m a sex pest, abuse me in the street”.
He said: “The first time I went to the gym afterwards I was shaking. I have been so scared. I go out now in a disguise — a baseball cap and sunglasses, I don’t want people to see me. I’m scared.”
Wallace also defended his former co-star John Torode after a racism allegation against Torode was upheld in the same report by Lewis Silkin: “I’ve known John for 30 years and he is not a racist.
“And as evidence of that, I’ll show you the incredible diversity of the people that he has championed, MasterChef winners, over the years. There is no way that man is a racist. No way. And my sympathies go out to John because I don’t want anybody to go through what I’ve been through.”
He said: “We never really did get on that well."
“We’re two very, very different characters. But we made bloody good telly together for 20 years.”
