Kirstie Allsopp doubled down on her remarks about Gregg Wallace as she lashed out at trolls who asked why she'd 'stayed silent for so long'.
On Sunday, the Location, Location, Location star took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to speak out about the allegations, after Wallace said the complaints made against him came from 'middle-class women of a certain age' in a rant on his Instagram page.
Using the hashtag #MiddleClassWomanOfaCertainAge, Allsopp said: 'Within 1hr of meeting Gregg Wallace he told me of a sex act that he and his partner at the time enjoyed 'every morning', she'd just left the room, we were filming a pilot.
'Did he get off on how embarrassed I was? It was totally unprofessional.'
After making the accusations, Allsopp faced a backlash from trolls who questioned why she continued to film with him if she felt uncomfortable.
Former glamour model and anti-vaxxer Leilani Dowding was among those criticising Allsopp, tweeting: 'So he said it on camera? Making a pilot! TV industry wants entertainment, and sex sells. Deal with it or get out.. you should have quit filming there and then if you didn’t like it …. But you didn’t. You wanted to make a pilot'.
Allsopp responded: 'He said it in the Green Room. It was not on camera. No wonder Wallace feels empowered to drill down, the replies on this are incredible.'
She added in separate tweet: 'Why say nothing? Because you feel, in no particular order, embarrassed, a prude, shocked, waiting for a male colleague to call him out, not wanting to “rock the boat”, thinking it’s better to plough on with the day, assuming you misheard/misunderstood or just don’t get the joke.'
Allsopp later doubled down: 'Because you are so embarrassed in that moment but you feel a fool/a prude/everyone has a job to do/you’ll wreck the shoot if you kick off etc. etc.'
In another tweet, she mused: 'Do you think this all a bit unfair on Gregg? If so find your wife/GF/Sister/Mum and ask if they think it's OK for you/their partner to make a comment about your bedroom activities to a woman you/they have just met at work.'
When asked why she wanted to highlight the issue now, Allsopp shared: 'Because the women, who unlike me, were brave enough to complain about it, should be supported. And anyone who thinks it’s OK needs to ask their wife if it’s OK with her if they talk about their sex lives in the office tomorrow.'
Another asked why she waited to speak out instead of 'seeing a show producer immediately', to which she replied: 'Because some women braver & better than me did complain, and I wanted to come out in support of them. Which was clearly needed given GW’s comments today on Instagram.'
Allsopp also responded to claims that Wallace's alleged remarks were 'banter', tweeting: 'I know what banter is, every working day someone comes really close to me & attaches a mic. inches from my bra, I know what it is to joke with male & female colleagues, but banter doesn’t involve too much information about your own sex life given to people you’ve never met before.'
After a troll branded her a 'little flower', she tweeted: 'The jolly messages I’ve had, due to my speaking out in support of the women who first called out Wallace, tell us so much about what we still have to do to battle with this b******s.'
Allsopp also retweeted: 'The fact you have had to defend yourself all day shows why people don't speak out in situations like this.'
Allsopp's remarks come after it emerged that the BBC allowed Wallace to remain on air despite at least four complaints being made against him.
On Sunday night show bosses were under mounting pressure to explain why they did not act sooner. And the presenter faced a further backlash after dismissing his accusers as a ‘handful of middle-class women of a certain age’.
A former culture secretary said the controversy was a test for the whole BBC system and said the apparent lack of curiosity was depressing.
MPs are now set to raise the matter with the BBC’s director general Tim Davie and chairman Samir Shah.
On Sunday, Wallace, 60, went on an extraordinary Instagram rant against his ‘middle-class’ accusers. He said he had been on MasterChef for 20 years and worked with 4,000 contestants, but ‘apparently’ there had been only 13 complaints.
His comments sparked a furious reaction from critics who accused him of ‘thinly veiled misogyny’.
A former MasterChef contestant claimed the allegations were the ‘tip of the iceberg’. The unnamed whistleblower, speaking to Sky News, claimed there was a ‘systemic’ culture problem on the show, adding: ‘I was horrified. I’d never seen anything like it, genuinely. I was really quite shocked at that really toxic environment.’
They said Wallace ‘would occasionally crack jokes that in different ways felt inappropriate, but he wasn’t the only one’. Wallace stepped aside from MasterChef last week after claims were made of inappropriate behaviour and sexual remarks.
This included allegations of ‘inappropriate sexual jokes’, undressing in front of women and standing too close to them.
Celebrity MasterChef winner Emma Kennedy told The Sunday Times she may have seen him inappropriately touch a camera assistant during a shoot for the 2012 final. She said: ‘The photographer had a young female assistant and she bent over in front of me. Gregg went over and went “Corr!” with his hands over her a**e.’
It emerged on Sunday that the BBC had previously received complaints about the star’s behaviour on at least four different occasions between 2017 and 2022.
It is thought that at least another four complaints were raised with staff working for the producers of MasterChef, which is owned by the company Banijay.
Among the allegations that emerged over the weekend was that Celebrity MasterChef contestant Aasmah Mir had warned the BBC about inappropriate comments by Wallace in 2017.
According to The Sunday Times, BBC executive Kate Phillips responded by raising concerns that Wallace’s behaviour was ‘unacceptable and cannot continue’.
The following year he was warned about his behaviour on the quiz show Impossible Celebrities amid allegations of ‘inappropriate sexual comments’.
A letter was also sent to the BBC in 2022 laying out a number of allegations which is said to have referred to a ‘pattern of behaviour’ that failed to meet ‘sexual harassment and bullying standards’.
In the letter, sent by producer and director Dawn Elrick, he was accused of making lewd comments and asking for the personal phone numbers of female production staff.
She said the BBC had recommended that each individual would have to make their own direct complaint to the corporation and did not receive further contact.
On Sunday, she told the Mail: ‘TV has a sexism, racism and classism issue, but there is no consistent HR a lot of time –those you can directly complain to have a vested interest to not rock the boat.
'If nothing else, the BBC should have paid attention to the letter, because this is what freelancers have been talking about for years.’
It is also claimed that in the same year, Nestle contacted the BBC about the star’s behaviour after he filmed at one of its factories for Inside The Factory. Staff were said to have been upset by his jokes about their weight.
One senior BBC source said it was ‘wrong’ to suggest the corporation had ‘done nothing’ about these complaints, adding it has been reported there were ‘interventions’ in 2017 and 2018. They added that the claims by Nestle were also probed and Wallace then left the show.
On Sunday, there were reports of the BBC facing a mutiny from its staff over bosses being aware of the allegations for several years.
Insiders told the Daily Telegraph the BBC seeks to ‘manage risk’ rather than deal with problems, which leads to ‘monumental f***-ups’.
Nicky Morgan, the culture secretary between 2019 and 2020, told the Mail this latest case ‘is a test for the whole BBC system.' She added: 'The lack of curiosity and follow-up to the complaints made is both depressing and unsurprising.’
Tory Caroline Dinenage, the chairman of the Commons culture, media and sport committee, said: ‘The committee will, I expect, be looking for some kind of reassurance that the right systems and processes are in place that would ensure staff are properly protected and allegations are always properly investigated.’
A BBC spokesman said: ‘We take any issues 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... will not be tolerated.’
Wallace’s lawyers said: ‘It is entirely false that he engages in behaviour of a sexually harassing nature’. Spokesmen for Wallace and Banijay declined to comment.
