‘Gregg, don’t assume us chaps are on your side’
I’m a man of a certain age, Gregg Wallace, just a few years younger than you. I was born in Deptford, not too far from your old manor of Peckham, and we’ve both spent more of our lives offline than on. But even I know that, unless you live in Mar-a-Lago, jumping on Instagram at 7am to whine about ‘a handful of middle-class women of a certain age’ is not a good idea. Bitter self-pity is not going to win support from anyone. But what really irks me is the unstated assumption that the chaps are on your side.
Let’s pull back, shall we, and see who’s alleging you made inappropriate remarks? Sir Rod Stewart, for instance, who called you out for the ways he said you treated Penny Lancaster on Celebrity MasterChef in 2021. Rod Stewart, whose dad was a builder and who worked as a printer before he became a star and – let’s be honest – has not been a symbol of wokery.
And then there’s the staff at a Nestlé factory in York, who are said to have refused to take part in Inside The Factory if you were presenting, 13 MasterChef contestants across 17 years, a male worker on the show... While strong, experienced broadcasters like Kirsty Wark, Kirstie Allsop and Ulrika Jonsson had the confidence to call you out, the suggestion that these are the only people capable of being offended by rape jokes and graphic descriptions of sex acts sounds like you’ve been living in a bad Carry On movie.
Look, I’m not precious. I’ve worked in kitchens, building sites, a merchant bank and some Fleet Street newsrooms. The main difference? Fleet Street was the only place where people threw objects at your head. To call the language in those workplaces fruity is like calling a Millwall football hooligan troublesome. And sure, there’s sometimes one man who seems to think it’s funny to tell sexist jokes because they don’t know how to hold an actual conversation. But the majority of us will look away when he approaches and try to dodge chatting to him.
It was interesting to read the 2017 Daily Mirror interview in which your MasterChef co-host and the best man at your fourth wedding, John Torode, distanced himself from you and your banter, too. ‘If we do go out for a drink, I’ll invariably be at one end of a big old table, and he’ll be at the other,’ he said. Gregg… he’s your best man. Do you really think your biggest problem is middle-class women of a certain age?
The truth is, we should call this alleged behaviour out more. I know that. Real men stand up for those who are being bullied. But often we just fall silent and look away, ashamed of the idiot who’s making such a fool of themselves and slightly ashamed of ourselves. For now, son, as one South London man to another, do yourself and all of us a favour. Keep quiet unless you’re going to apologise.
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