Gregg Wallace dwell: Anita Rani warns MasterChef host ‘women have long memories’ as BBC resists calls to axe present

Gregg Wallace made an alleged remark to Melanie Sykes on Celebrity MasterChef that forced her to quit television “once and for all”.

The TV presenter appeared on the cookery competition in 2021, making it to the semi-final. However, Sykes ended up making an informal complaint about Wallace, who has “stepped away” from the show over allegations of inappropriate comments.

Writing in Illuminated, Sykes, who has been on screens since the 1990s, said that Wallace told her appearing on Celebrity MasterChef would help her career.

“I didn’t know what to say, so I smiled and said ‘Yes,’ but I was really thinking, ‘Yes, you have finally helped me decide to end my television career once and for all,’” Sykes wrote, adding: “I was done.”

TV host Anita Rani has warned Gregg Wallace that the women he may have offended over the weekend have “long memories”.

The Countryfile host, 47, took to social media to respond to claims made by Wallace that “middle-class women of a certain age,” were to blame for misconduct complaints made against him.

She wrote: “It’s important to remember that many middle class women of a certain age grew up as working class girls who were, and are, fierce as f***. With long memories.”

Gregg Wallace “missed the perfect opportunity to say nothing” in his response to an investigation being opened into his behaviour, MP Jess Phillips has said.

“I think that I’m going to go back to my mother’s best advice for Gregg Wallace at the moment … that he missed the perfect opportunity to say nothing,” the safeguarding minister told Times Radio.

His comments in response to an inquiry being opened were “sexist, they were less than helpful, and they were less than helpful to him,” she said.

“I think that the investigation has to go ahead, but Gregg Wallace obviously has complete capability to apologise for anything that he sees fit in the meantime.

“Now, you know the allegations that have been made need to be looked into, but if they are found, then of course he should apologise and show that he’s going to change his behaviour if that’s the case.”

“If you’re a middle-class man of a certain age worried about Gregg Wallace’s future career prospects, there’s no need. Honestly. It’s all going to be absolutely fine – I promise you,” writes Helen Coffey.

“The disgraced ‘MasterChef’ judge is clearly gearing up to follow in the tried and tested footsteps of many problematic men before him”

Read the full comment here:

Stephen Fry has said men in television must consider who may be the “victim or stereotype” at the root of their “light banter” after Gregg Wallace apologised for his response to complaints made about his behaviour.

Fry told Sky News Breakfast on Tuesday: “I think if, by now, people who work in television, men who work in television, don’t understand that light banter is no longer something that can be aired in ways unless they think hard about, is there a sort of victim or a stereotype at the root of this banter who might be hurt.

“And it’s just good manners, really. Good manners have changed. In Victorian times, certain things couldn’t be referred to or seen and it was only polite to obey this because people were shocked and upset if things were not respected that they respect.

“And so I think we’ve all just got to realise it’s not about wokeness, it’s just about being sensitive to the atmosphere.”

MP Jess Phillips has said she is comfortable with MasterChef continuing to air while host Gregg Wallace is investigated over his behaviour.

She told BBC Breakfast: “Gregg Wallace isn’t the only person on MasterChef, if it was just the Gregg Wallace show, then I could understand that you would immediately go, yeah, just take it off the air.

“But it is a launchpad for quite a lot of young chefs. It’s not for me to decide what the BBC chooses to air or not.”

As long as the investigation is ongoing, she said, she is “okay” with MasterChef continuing to air.

Gregg Wallace has been branded as “unbelievably foolish” by Stephen Fry for posting a video to social media over the weekend blaming “middle-class women of a certain age” for complaints against him.

The veteran actor told SkyNews: “It was obviously unbelievably foolish of Gregg Wallace to make that video over the weekend. It really showed that he wasn’t understanding.”

“Even if he felt he had been misunderstood himself, he could surely see that there were some women there who were truly hurt and had felt not listened to and that he should first of all address that.”

The BBC is facing calls from senior politicians to pause broadcasting of MasterChef as it investigates complaints of misconduct against host Gregg Wallace.

Labour grandee Baroness Harriet Harman said she does not “think the BBC should be airing” the show as she told LBC : “It is not the job of presenters to trash a whole load of viewers who hitherto have enjoyed watching the programme. But I, for one, am not going to be watching it.”

Downing Street has also condemned remarks Wallace made over the weekend about middle class women being to blame for the complaints as “inappropriate and misogynistic”.

Did Wallace – who has been accused of making inappropriate sexual comments over a period of 17 years – not stop for a second to consider that it might be these women who are calling him out because they are the ones with the confidence to do so?

Read the full Voices piece by journalist Eleanor Mills: