A former MasterChef contestant has accused host Gregg Wallace of repeatedly thrusting his groin in her face as she crouched at an oven while filming the show.
Emma Phillips-Jennings, who took part in the popular TV cooking show in 2009, described Wallace’s behaviour as “unprofessional an disgusting”.
She told The Sun she had been cooking a stuffed trout when Wallace allegedly made the gestures while making a lewd remark about her parents.
It comes after BBC News reports Wallace, 60, is facing fresh allegations of inappropriately touching women. Wallace, who denies any sexually harrassing behaviour, last week stepped down as co-host of MasterChef while an external review is carried out.
Recounting her experience, Ms Phillips-Jennings told The Sun: “Gregg asked me how I learned to cook and was it from my mother. I said, ‘No, because my mum’s Jewish and lived on a kibbutz where you have very set jobs and my dad was the chef in our family’. I said she hadn’t even seen raw meat until she met my father.
“As soon as I said that, Gregg then said, ‘Yeeeaaaah, and he then showed her his meat’.
“He then thrust his groin towards me three times as I crouched down at the oven. It was a low oven so it meant he was near my face.
“I was completely taken aback,” said Ms Phillips-Jenings, who lives in Herne Bay in Kent. “I was so shocked because he should not have been talking like that - and no one said anything to him or pulled him up about it.
“I was gobsmacked and found it unprofessional and disgusting.”
She claimed the incident was filmed by the camera crew, but was not included in the episode when it aired.
Ms Phillips-Jennings, who was 29-year-old single mum at the time, said: “I was young at the time and naïve, and this was a big moment in my life and he ruined it.
“I was furious when he made those comments. He was vile...I might have expected ‘banter’ like that if I’d appeared on Little Britain but not on a cooking show.
“It was a big moment in my life and I was a single mum who had just gone through a separation.
“It was a really important moment for me to feel empowered as a woman. But I was really taken aback by Gregg.”
Last week, BBC News reported 13 people across a range of shows Wallace had worked on over a 17-year period had made allegations about his “inappropriate” behaviour.
On Tuesday, it revealed Wallace was facing fresh allegations that he had inappropriately touched women.
The outlet reported that Wallace allegedly pressed his crotch against a woman working on the BBC show Eat Well For Less during filming in a supermarket in 2015 and that he allegedly touched the bottom of another woman during a group hug in a lift in 2022.
Wallace came under fire earlier this week after claiming online that the allegations of inappropriate behaviour came from a “handful of middle-class women of a certain age".
He apologised for his remark on Monday, saying he has “been under a huge amount of stress”, and adding he will now “take some time out”.
The BBC has now taken the decision to pull two hour-long MasterChef Christmas specials starring Wallace from its festive schedule.
Wallace’s lawyers were previously quoted by BBC News as saying “it is entirely false that he engages in behaviour of a sexually harassing nature”.
Banijay UK, which produces MasterChef, previously said Wallace is “committed to fully co-operating” with the external review while his lawyers have previously strongly denied “he engages in behaviour of a sexually harassing nature”, according to BBC News.
A BBC spokesperson previously said: “We take any issues that are raised with us seriously and we have robust processes in place to deal with them.
“We are always clear that any behaviour which falls below the standards expected by the BBC will not be tolerated.
“Where an individual is contracted directly by an external production company we share any complaints or concerns with that company and we will always support them when addressing them.”
The BBC said it would be “inappropriate” to comment amid the external review by Banijay UK.
