Who is MasterChef judge and presenter Gregg Wallace and when did he quit BBC’s cooking competition?
Gregg has denied any of the claims made against him
GREGG Wallace shot to fame as the presenter of MasterChef in 2005 and he has gone on to present some of the biggest shows on TV.
However, the presenter stepped down from the cooking competition on November 28, 2024, after he allegedly made sexual remarks to colleagues on the show. Gregg denies the claims made against him.
TV stardom
Gregg was born on October 17, 1964, in Elephant and Castle, London.
Before finding fame on Masterchef, he worked as a warehouseman at Covent Garden Fruit and Veg Market before selling vegetables himself.
In 1989, he launched George Allen’s Greengrocers which grew into a thriving company.
His expertise landed him a job on Saturday Kitchen in 2002, but he was replaced by Antony Worrall-Thompson just a year later.
Gregg started presenting MasterChef in 2005 alongside John Torode.
He has also presented BBC shows including Supermarket Secrets and Eat Well for Less?, as well as going behind the scenes of food production on Inside The Factory.
He stepped back from Inside the Factory in 2023 after deciding to focus on his son, who is autistic.
One of Gregg’s most famous TV appearances was on Strictly Come Dancing in 2014 when the left-footed food lover was eliminated first.
He has also landed himself guest spots on Room 101, Who Do You Think You Are? and An Extra Slice.
The star also presented two Channel 5 Christmas specials: Gregg Wallace’s Grand Christmas Adventure and Gregg Wallace’s Magical Christmas Market.
Gregg’s relationship with John Torode
In 2021, Gregg talked about his friendship with John, where he explained they get along but keep their relationship to a working one.
Speaking on The One Show, he said: “And people still ask if we are really mates, ‘Do you really get on because we heard you don’t get on?
“It’s been nearly 20 years and I knew him 10 years before this, so we’ve known each other 30 years.”
John added: “We’ve done 10 years not 19 series, so we are up to nearly 40 series, then you put professional on top of that and juniors, 19 years on TV, we feel lucky.”
The pair returned to our screens for season 20 of MasterChef in 2024.
However, John’s wife has opened up about her experience with Gregg’s “rude jokes” and sense of humour.
She said: “Greg was telling – I’m probably not allowed to say this…
“Greg just told rude joke after rude joke to the crew.
“You’re just sitting there and if you’re on the front bench just chopping away thinking, ‘I’ve got ten minutes left,’ and he’s saying, ‘So this girl walked into a bar…’
“And I’m going, ‘Please I don’t want to hear this joke’.”
Shocking allegations
On November 28, 2024, Gregg decided to step back from MasterChef after being slammed with accusations of making sexual remarks to female colleagues.
He was accused by BBC presenter Kirsty Wark of making “sexualised” jokes while filming the celebrity edition of the cooking show in 2011.
She said that his comments were “really, really in the wrong place”.
BBC News announced on the same day as Gregg’s announcement that they launched a probe into Gregg’s behaviour on five shows from 2005 to 2022.
The probe had been launched in the summer of 2024.
The Sun exclusively revealed that Gregg had also been accused of taking his top off, in front of a female colleague and bragging about his sex life.
Banijay UK, the production company behind MasterChef, has launched their own investigation but Gregg’s lawyers have continued to call the claims against him false.
Fourth time lucky
Gregg married his fourth wife Anne-Marie in August 2016 and the couple had a son named Sid in 2019.
Sid was diagnosed with autism in 2022 and Gregg confirmed that his son is non-verbal.
Before marrying Anne-Marie, Gregg had tied the knot three times prior.
His first wife Christine left him after being married for just six weeks in 1991.
Gregg then married a former pastry chef named Denise, with whom he had two children named Tom and Libby in 1999.
However, the pair split in 2004 and Denise sadly passed away in 2017.
He later married Heidi in 2010 but they divorced just fifteen months later.