THE BBC is overplaying complaints about former MasterChef host Gregg Wallace’s behaviour after underplaying them for years, a broadcasting expert has said.
Professor Lis Howell, a professor emeritus of journalism at City University of London who was formerly a managing editor at Sky News and the first female head of news at ITV, told BBC Radio Scotland that the story had put the broadcaster in a “difficult position”.
It comes after it was revealed that the BBC had had complaints about Wallace’s behaviour dating back to at least 2017. Scots broadcaster Aasmah Mir published emails in The Times where a BBC executive accepted that the host’s “unacceptable” behaviour “cannot continue” – yet nothing was done for years.
Furthermore, The Sun reported that in 2018 Gregg had been scolded by BBC bosses after making “inappropriate sexual comments” to a female staffer on the game show Impossible Celebrities – yet he was still allowed to continue hosting MasterChef.
And The Sunday Telegraph reported producer Georgia Harding, who worked on MasterChef between 2014 and 2015 and later Eat Well For Less, claimed she raised concerns about “inappropriate” behaviour from him while working on the show.
Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland about the story on Monday, Professor Howell said the BBC “are overplaying this story now, after underplaying it for years and years”.
She went on: “There's been a constant drip of complaints – formal complaints are quite a different thing – but there's been a constant drip of people making comments or complaining about Gregg Wallace's attitude and what he said and so on …
“The BBC has made attempts to deal with it over the years, but now it's got out of control because there's a lot of people who have made the same sort of complaint all at once, and it's a question of the numbers at the time, and they're going to have to do something about it now.
“But I think making it, say, the lead story on BBC News at 10 even though it's a BBC news investigation, is out of proportion as well.
“I mean, Gregg Wallace is not a national treasure, in my view, and MasterChef is not Match of the Day. So now they're overplaying it, having underplayed it for years.”
The scandal erupting around Wallace was only worsened over the weekend after he claimed that the accusations of inappropriate behaviour against him came from “a handful of middle-class women of a certain age”.
The MasterChef presenter faces various allegations of making “inappropriate sexual jokes”, asking for the phone numbers of female members of production staff, and undressing in front of and standing “too close” to women working on his shows.
“Apparently now, I’m reading in the paper, there’s been 13 complaints in that time.
“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.
“In 20 years, over 20 years of television, can you imagine how many women, female contestants on MasterChef, have made sexual remarks, or sexual innuendo? Can you imagine?”
Ulrika Jonsson, who competed on Celebrity MasterChef in 2017, said she was “seething” while Kirstie Allsopp described his response as “unacceptable”.
Allsopp, who alleged Wallace once made a comment to her about his sex life which left her “so embarrassed” she thought she “might cry”, said she was angered by the video.
“That is unacceptable. Because he is essentially saying this is a class issue and middle-class women don’t understand the type of things he says because he’s working-class. Well I’m sorry, but he’s doing an incredible disservice to men,” she told BBC Radio 4’s The World This Weekend.
“What’s he saying? That working-class men do this kind of thing, embarrass their wives and girlfriends and sisters and mothers? That’s unacceptable, of course, that’s not the case.”
Actress Emma Kennedy, who won Celebrity MasterChef in 2012, told BBC News “it doesn’t matter what the age of any woman is”.
She added: “Playing the ‘they’re having a go at me because I’m working class’ card is ridiculous.”
Kennedy, who returned to Celebrity MasterChef as a guest judge on three occasions in 2016, 2017 and 2018, said she had told a number of people at MasterChef about one incident which concerned her but had “no idea” what happened next.
A BBC source told PA: “While we are not going to comment on individuals or any internal HR processes, particularly when there is an ongoing process in place being run by [the broadcasting firm which produces MasterChef] Banijay who have the direct contractual relationship with Gregg Wallace.
“It would be wrong to report the BBC has done nothing if or when matters have been raised with us – not least because it is already being widely reported there were interventions in both 2017 and 2018 where action was taken.
“We continue to urge caution about pre-judging any of this, particularly the involvement of BBC staff members and any inference they have not acted appropriately.”
