Gregg Wallace’s past comments about being a ‘hooligan’ and his arrest have resurfaced following the allegations against him.
The MasterChef judge, 60, has had to step away from the BBC programme after several accusations have been made and an investigation is underway.
He’s been accused of making ‘inappropriate sexual jokes’ on set, asking for the phone numbers of female members of production staff, and undressing in front of and standing ‘too close’ to women working on his shows.
It’s also claimed that he ‘mimicked sex acts’ and walked around the studio almost ‘completely naked’, with more than 13 people across a range of shows over a 17-year-period making complaints.
Wallace has fiercely denied the allegations, and claimed they come from ‘middle-class women of a certain age’ in a response which sparked further backlash from the likes of Ulrika Jonsson and Kirstie Allsopp.
Meanwhile, his past comments like saying he deserves a statue in London for ‘saving the nation’ and controversial statements he made about parenting have resurfaced, as has his admission of being a ‘hooligan’.
The Peckham-born star, who left school at 14 formerly worked as a greengrocer and began his career in the Covent Garden fruit and vegetable market before starting George Allen’s Greengrocers in 1989, previously called himself a ‘Millwall hooligan’.
He told men’s weekly magazine Zoo, according to The Express, that the South London football club had a ‘fierce reputation at the time’ and a ‘large percentage of people that were able to cause havoc’.
‘I got arrested for assault when I was 20… But my Millwall days are long behind me,’ he said in the 2008 interview.
‘I was a product of my area. Police were making hundreds of arrests at every home game back then. Getting nicked was like a social pastime!’
After his start as a greengrocer, Wallace has gone on to have a successful broadcasting career, presenting many shows over the years, among them Veg Talk on BBC Radio 4 with Charlie Hicks.
He was also the original presenter of the BBC show Saturday Kitchen in 2002 and has been featured on Eat Well For Less?, Inside The Factory, Turn Back Time, Harvest, and Supermarket Secrets.
He took part in Strictly Come Dancing in 2014 and was the first to be booted off the show, along with his professional dance partner Aliona Vilani.
Wallace has also hosted Celebrity MasterChef and MasterChef: The Professionals and regularly writes for food magazines.
The presenter has been open about his fitness journey over the past couple of years and started a weight-loss and health site called ShowMe.Fit as well as a healthy lifestyle podcast called A Piece Of Cake.
He revealed that a doctor had cautioned him in 2017 that, thanks to high cholesterol, he was ‘heading for a heart attack’ if he did not take action.
He has two children, Tom and Libby, from a previous relationship as well as a young son called Sid, whom he welcomed with his fourth wife Anne-Marie Sterpini in 2019.
The couple, who have a 20-year age gap, met in 2013 over Twitter, with Wallace later saying on the White Wine Question Time podcast: ‘I’m on the television, I can’t walk into bars and stuff.
‘You can’t chat anyone up at work because the HR department would sack you.
‘What I liked about Twitter was that it’s not a dating site.’
In 2022, Wallace was made an MBE as he was recognised in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to food and charity.
The broadcaster said in a statement at the time: ‘From a council estate in Peckham to being recognised by the Queen is for me something akin to a fairy-tale story. I am incredibly, incredibly proud.’Gregg Wallace’s ‘hooligan’ past revealed including arrest for assault