Melanie Sykes 'ended TV career' because of Gregg Wallace after series of 'incidents' on MasterChef
Melanie Sykes said that her appearance on Celebrity MasterChef in 2021 resulted in her deciding she was done with TV.
MasterChef host Gregg Wallace has stepped back from his duties, though the episodes he has already filmed will air on the BBC as scheduled, after a number of women made allegations about sexual comments.
Wallace's lawyers said it was 'entirely false that he engages in behaviour of a sexually harassing nature', while the presenter then hit out at 'middle-class women of a certain age' as he addressed the accusations against him.
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An apology then followed as the former MasterChef presenter said he 'wasn't in a good head space when I posted' the video and he would 'take some time out now while this investigation is under way'.
With Wallace under investigation some people are looking at past comments made about the TV presenter, including Melanie Sykes saying that she decided to quit TV after going on Celebrity MasterChef.
In her 2023 autobiography Illuminated: Autism & All The Things I’ve Left Unsaid, she wrote that Wallace told her going on Celebrity Masterchef 'would do a lot for you', but that afterwards she would 'decide to end my television career once and for all'.
She had explained in her book that when she got onto the show Wallace greeted her by asking her whether models ate, which she thought was 'unprofessional' and driven by 'ignorance and disrespect with an extra helping of arrogance'.
She wrote: "The MasterChef experience continued to be an eye-opener, and some unprofessional behaviour on set was jaw-dropping. I was in a cycle of desperately wanting to leave but also wanting to do well because I was in a competition."
Sykes wrote that she found Wallace to be 'very unprofessional' and he'd been 'barking orders behind the scenes about how we had to behave'.
After she was done with the show that was when she claimed Wallace told her being on it would be good for her career, with Skyes thinking instead that she 'was done'.
Sykes recently explained things further in a YouTube video uploaded this month as she painted the view from her window, saying: "Every time Gregg came over to the desk I didn't really like him being around, really, 'cause it's all about vibrations and energy and if you're not tuned into... I mean, I didn't really give a f**k about winning or not winning.
"I wanted to get out really, I didn't really enjoy the experience but like I say in my book if I'm in a competition I still want to be part of the competition, that's just natural for me."
She also said to 'stop letting one person be a scapegoat, which is the so called talent', adding that she complained after her experience on Celebrity MasterChef.
"I complained afterwards, I said I didn't want to make a formal complaint because honestly I'd spend my whole time in litigation if I did that, and I think that's one of the reasons why people don't go for it," she explained.
Speaking of the allegations against Wallace, the BBC said in a statement: "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.”
Topics: Gregg Wallace, TV, BBC, Celebrity
Joe Harker