Journalist Michael Odell has shared that he ‘felt sorry’ for ex-MasterChef star Gregg Wallace after a lunch meeting at his London home two years ago.
The Times journalist was invited to Wallace’s residence to discuss the TV personality’s rise to fame from humble beginnings, but left feeling disheartened by their conversation, which was peppered with sexual jokes and innuendos from Wallace.
This comes as Wallace faces accusations of making inappropriate sexual remarks and jokes by 13 individuals over a span of 17 years. He has vehemently denied these allegations through a statement from his legal team.
Wallace, who has temporarily stepped down from MasterChef amid an internal investigation, is also accused of groping individuals. Celebrities such as Rod Stewart, Charlotte Crosby, and Ulrika Jonsson have recently spoken out about the TV star.
Upon meeting the former MasterChef presenter, who has taken a break from the BBC show he co-hosted with John Torode for nearly two decades, Odell said he was captivated by Wallace’s warmth, good nature, and humour. They discussed how Wallace achieved stardom in the entertainment industry at the age of 40, after years of working as a greengrocer, reports the Mirror.
Wallace, who has faced accusations of making sexual jokes – including a rape joke on set – seems to have always had a penchant for such humour, as per Odell’s account. During his time as a greengrocer in the markets, Wallace shared with the journalist one of his typical market cries when selling cucumbers to women: “Awright luv, it’s not like your old man’s. It won’t get bigger the more you touch it.”
Reflecting on this, the Times writer admitted: “OK, cancel me now, because I thought that was hilarious at the time, and yet it is clearly a sexualised joke. I am a male interviewer exactly the same age as Wallace. Would he have offered the same anecdote to a female journalist. I don’t know. Tone and context are important, obviously. Wallace wasn’t propositioning with his veg, simply reporting to me the patter of a fruit and veg salesman back in the day.”
While Wallace’s jokes have offended and personally upset many, including the 13 women who have lodged allegations against him, the TV star confessed that he believed it was his powerful personality that helped him transform his greengrocer business from scratch into a £7.5 million empire – but regardless of his success, he couldn’t, or didn’t wish to abandon his working class roots.
The journalist expressed sympathy for the star when it was time to part ways. After hearing about the culture clash between Wallace and his children, Odell wrote: “I actually remember feeling quite sorry for him when he told me about the culture clash with his privately educated children from a previous relationship, Tom and Libby, now 30 and 26 respectively. Their mother suffered with addiction and Wallace won custody when the oldest child was 10.
“He sent both to private school, and during one holiday his daughter made a bruising observation. ‘Libby says to me, ‘Daddy, sometimes at school I forget myself and I talk like you and my friends say that I talk like a chav,” he told me. Wallace laughed affectionately about this, but I felt there was sadness there.”
This follows Wallace addressing his ‘middle-aged women’ comments and issuing an apology. In an attempt to confront the allegations made against him, Gregg released a series of videos on Instagram Stories over the weekend, arguing that those making claims against him were “a handful of middle class women of a certain age”.
In a candid Instagram Stories video to his followers, Gregg revealed: “I’ve been doing MasterChef for 20 years. Amateur, Celebrity and Professional MasterChef. And in that time, I have worked with over 4,000 contestants of all different ages, all different backgrounds, all walks of life. And apparently now, I’m reading in the paper, there’s been 13 complaints in that time. In the newspaper I can see the complaints coming from a handful of middle class women of a certain age, just from Celebrity MasterChef. This isn’t right.”
However, following significant backlash, he expressed regret for his initial comments. In a subsequent video on Monday, he stated: “I want to apologise for any offence that I caused with my post yesterday and any upset I may have caused to a lot of people.”
“I wasn’t in a good headspace when I posted it, I’ve been under a huge amount of stress, a lot of emotion, I felt very alone, under siege yesterday when I posted it. It’s obvious to me I need to take some time out, now, while this investigation is under way I hope you understand and I do hope you will accept this apology.”
Get the latest celebrity gossip and telly news sent straight to your inbox. Sign up to our daily Showbiz newsletter here.