Former MasterChef host Gregg Wallace has claimed he was repeatedly groped while working on the cooking show, but has argued it never crossed his mind to report it despite being sacked for inappropriate behaviour.
The ex-presenter said he was “touched" and "groped" regularly while filming the BBC programme.
“Have you got any idea of the sexual references made to me on a daily basis? How many times I’ve been touched by women wanting a selfie?
"How many times I’ve been groped? How many times suggestive comments have been made to me? How many female contestants have said inappropriate things on MasterChef? he told The Sun.
However, Wallace did not raise a complaint as he insisted that this was partially because there are “huge problems” with the way complaints are handled at the BBC.
"Had I wanted to raise any complaints, I’d have had the decency to speak to that person directly. Privately, not publicly. My God, can you imagine the complaints I could have made?” he said.
He added: “It wouldn’t even cross my mind though. Now, I’m not suggesting that groping is right, but it was happening to me on a regular basis. It was just extraordinary.”
The former host added that his experiences undermined the “idea” that television presenters are “godlike” and “just throwing their weight around and bullying people”.
Wallace was sacked earlier this month after a report revealed allegations of inappropriate behaviour, including making inappropriate sexual jokes and asking for the phone numbers of female production staff.
More than half of the 83 allegations against him were upheld.
In response to the findings, Wallace said: “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.”
In 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.”
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.
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”.
LBC has approached BBC and Banijay for comment.
