TV presenter Kirstie Allsopp has said she was “so embarrassed” she thought she “might cry” after Gregg Wallace allegedly made a comment to her about his sex life.
Allsopp, 53, said the encounter took place several years ago in a performers’ lounge while she was filming a pilot for a TV quiz show alongside Wallace and his partner.
She told BBC Radio 4’s The World This Weekend: “I’d been chatting to her, she left the room and he (Wallace) made a reference to something they did in bed.
“You know that feeling when you’re so embarrassed that you think you might cry. You just feel kind of internally scarlet. I had that feeling and I always remembered it.”
Wallace faces a number of 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.
Allsopp said she was angered by a video the 60-year-old MasterChef presenter posted on Instagram, in which he claimed the complaints against him were coming from a “handful of middle-class women of a certain age”.
The Location, Location, Location presenter added: “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 a incredible disservice to men.
“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.
“I absolutely understand about banter. I’m a mother of sons – two stepsons, two sons. But there’s a huge difference between robust chat and the kind of comment Gregg Wallace made to me.”
She also said she regretted not confronting the former greengrocer “then and there”.
It comes after it was announced Wallace is to step away from the BBC cooking show while historical misconduct complaints are externally reviewed by MasterChef producer Banijay UK.
He also faces allegations of inappropriate sexual comments from 13 people across a range of shows over a 17-year period, as reported by BBC News, which said it sent a letter to the TV star’s representatives earlier this week.
Wallace’s lawyers say “it is entirely false that he engages in behaviour of a sexually harassing nature”.
The presenter’s representatives have been contacted for comment.
