'I saw Gregg Wallace up close - he was battling demons and I feared the worst'

After I spent a morning in Gregg Wallace’s company, I felt like I needed a lie down. Meeting him to record an episode of my podcast, he was – at first – everything I had expected him to be: brash, extrovert and very loud.

In fact, he was not unlike his persona on BBC show MasterChef, with his booming voice and cockney cackle of a laugh. But after a few hours with him in late 2023 – and a very revealing interview – I came away with a very different perspective of the former Peckham greengrocer. Namely: how has this clearly troubled man with a host of demons risen to the top of the TV pile and stayed there for so long?

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It’s pertinent now as his career lies in tatters amid a swirl of accusations. This week alone we learned that 50 more people have made claims about him to BBC News.

Most accuse him of inappropriate sexual comments. Eleven women accuse him of ­inappropriate sexual behaviour, which he denies. If the claims against him are true, you can see in a heartbeat why he was relieved of his job as MasterChef co-host, a role he had since 2005.

When I met him in 2023, I found it hard to comprehend how he coped in the glare of the public eye. The answer was that he didn’t.

During our recording in the basement of a private members’ club in Soho in London’s West End, he talked about how being on TV exacerbated his mental health struggles.

It was a candid chat. But there was a niggling thought at the back of my mind that things wouldn’t end well.

I couldn’t put my finger on it – and I still struggle to – but 20 months later, the situation has well and truly imploded. He had revealed how the more famous he got, the worse his anxiety grew. He told me: “I used to not be able to go on holiday without getting anxiety attacks.”

At one point, Gregg looked me in the eye as he said how he lived in constant fear his career could end at any moment.

He said: “Why was I always scared of losing my job? Why was I always scared of losing my house? Why was I always scared of being poor?”

Being on telly made his anxiety levels soar. “TV is terrible for someone with anxiety,” he said. “I’ve had the same PA for 12 years. She went, ‘My word, you picked the wrong profession.’”

His stint on Strictly was a disaster. BBC bosses were so worried they got a therapist for him mid-series.

He said: “I was having a tough time. I was really stressed – so badly that the side of my face broke out into a rash, like cold sores.”

He told me his fourth wife Anna pleaded with him for them to quit the UK and live in Italy, asking him: “Is this worth it?”

A lot of his issues stemmed from a childhood blighted by abuse. Aged eight, he was sexually assaulted by a babysitter’s husband. Gregg told me: “I didn’t tell anybody at the time. I did tell my mum when I was older but she didn’t seem to want to know.”

He said of the abuse: “It was quite a horrendous situation for a young boy.”

Clearly, none of this could excuse some of the appalling behaviour he
is now accused of.

There are some who may question why Gregg was on TV in the first place given his fragility. But mental health problems should not preclude you from your passion.

And I’m told that producers ­recognised he needed help and assigned him a full-time welfare specialist over the past six months.

This week he claimed to have received a formal autism diagnosis. Gregg, 60, said on Tuesday: “My neuro-diversity, now formally ­diagnosed as autism, was suspected by colleagues across countless seasons of Master-Chef. Yet nothing was done to ­investigate my disability or protect me from what I now realise was a dangerous environment for 20 years.”

Autism charities have reacted with fury to these comments, with one saying the condition is “not a free pass for bad behaviour”. Emily Banks, founder of neurodiversity training body Enna, said: “Being autistic is never an excuse for misconduct.

“It doesn’t absolve anyone of responsibility and it doesn’t mean you can’t tell right from wrong.”

But as one executive on a rival channel told me: “This isn’t about whether Gregg has autism.

“This is about what MasterChef knew about the wronged women over the years, and whether they just turned a blind eye.”

We now have to wait and see if the long-awaited MasterChef review into the saga provides the answers when it comes back on Monday.

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