Gregg Wallace has reportedly been fired by the BBC following a nine month sexual misconduct investigation.
But the former MasterChef star condemned the corporation in a scathing social media post saying he had been cleared of ‘the most serious and sensational accusations’.
Writing on Instagram, Wallace said he had taken the decision to go public before the Silkins report was published as ‘I cannot sit in silence while my reputation is further damaged to protect others’.
The 60-year-old had stepped down from MasterChef while complaints from 13 women about historical allegations of misconduct were investigated.
Wallace said ‘the most damaging claims (including allegations from public figures which have not been upheld) were found to be baseless’.
He said he had recognised ‘that some of my humour and language, at times, was inappropriate’.
A source told The Sun that Wallace was ‘both furious and devastated’ by the BBC’s decision to axe him.
‘I was hired by the BBC and MasterChef as the cheeky greengrocer. A real person with warmth, character, rough edges and all,’ Wallace said.
‘For over two decades, that authenticity was part of the brand. Now, in a sanitised world, that same personality is seen as a problem.’
A source reportedly said Wallace had been cleared of the most high profile allegations that had been brought by Penny Lancaster and Kirsty Wark.
‘But the BBC has made it clear there is no way back for him. He is devastated,’ they said.
The former greengrocer, who was recently diagnosed with autism, accused the BBC of doing nothing to ‘investigate my disability or protect me from what I now realise was a dangerous environment for over twenty years’.
And he vowed ‘I will not go quietly’ as he said the full 200 page report will not be published with the BBC instead going to release an executive summary.
‘What really concerns me about the short summary is others who have been found guilty of serious allegations have been erased from the published version of events. I, and I’m sure the public, would like to know why?,’ he said.
The report is to be officially published on Thursday, but, according to The Sun, Wallace’s legal team have seen the report.
A BBC spokesperson told MailOnline: ‘Banijay UK instructed the law firm Lewis Silkin to run an investigation into allegations against Gregg Wallace. We are not going to comment until the investigation is complete and the findings are published.’
Wallace was initially bullish in the face of the allegations, taking to Instagram to say they mostly came from ‘middle class women of a certain age’.
He went on to ask: ‘Can you imagine how many women on MasterChef have made sexual remarks or sexual innuendo?’
Since then, several high-profile names – including TV presenter Ulrika Jonsson as well as Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer – had condemned his remarks in public statements.
The former greengrocer later apologised for the controversial comments which caused a PR storm.
The under-fire presenter said of his middle class women slur: ‘I wasn’t in a good headspace when I posted it. I’ve been under a huge amount of stress, a lot of emotion.’
He told the Mail in April had he how he stopped socialising with young people after first being disciplined by the BBC in 2018, because he was ‘scared they would complain about him.’
He was disciplined for inappropriate behaviour while working on a quiz show when he told a young runner on the final day of filming that he’d ‘really enjoyed working with her, she was brilliantly clever, strikingly attractive and was going to do well’.
Wallace said: ‘They said that was improper because it was a personal remark and sent me on a course on how to communicate with younger people, which just confused me even more.
‘I thought, ‘F***, I don’t have to do very much to get into a lot of trouble here.’
Wallace stopped socialising with young people. When on location, he’d order room service rather than join them for dinner or a drink.
‘It was at that point that I realised, in 2018, that I didn’t have to do a lot to get into a lot of trouble.
Talking about the aftermath in a new interview, he explained: ‘My behaviours completely and utterly changed from 2018 and that’s why there are no complaints in this big investigation after 2018. It changed me completely and I never got into trouble again.
‘But the way I did it was to become a social recluse. I refused to do anything social at work, wouldn’t go to the pub with anyone, to the point where when we went out on location everybody else would go out for dinner and I would stay in my hotel room.
‘I wouldn’t socialise. I stopped any social conversations with younger people that I didn’t know very well.’
Wallace recalled: ‘There’s some really good young people at work and they’d say ‘Gregg we’re all going for a drink are you gonna come?’
‘And I’d say no I won’t come. You guys make me nervous. The sensibilities of a sixty year old man are different to 25-year-olds and you live in a complaint culture that never existed.
‘If I go out with you and I drink and offer an opinion, political or social, I’m scared you’re going to complain about me. The anxiety levels were just extraordinary.’
