MasterChef’s Marcus Wareing didn’t mince his words when dishing the dirt on his working relationship with co-star Gregg Wallace. The culinary maestro, who stars in MasterChef: The Professionals alongside Monica Galetti, has kept his lips sealed following the news that Gregg is bowing out from the hit cookery competition while an investigation into claims about his behaviour continues.
Banijay UK, the production company behind MasterChef, has previously stated that Gregg, 60, is “committed to fully co-operating” with the ongoing external investigation, while his legal team has robustly refuted any suggestion “he engages in behaviour of a sexually harassing nature”. While Marcus, 54, hasn’t directly addressed the allegations swirling around his colleague, he did spill the beans on their collaboration in the past.
Ahead of the 15th season of MasterChef: The Professionals last year, Marcus let slip about tensions among the judges, confessing “it [messes] it all up” when Wallace gets involved in the decision-making process. He bluntly remarked: “If it was just me and Monica, then we’re good at predicting the winner, but because Gregg is in the mix, it [messes] it all up a bit.”
READ MORE: Gregg Wallace takes brutal swipe at MasterChef co-host John Torode and his wife
READ MORE: John Torode’s wife Lisa Faulkner breaks silence after Gregg Wallace apology
“We have times where we do disagree but everyone’s entitled to their point of view,” reports the Mirror.
(Image: BBC /Shine TV)
Marcus then confessed that after years of collaboration, he’s chilled out a bit when it comes to pushing his own agenda. “There are three votes and in the early days I’d be fighting like a cat in a bag but now it’s like, ‘whatever’,” he quipped.
Despite chef Monica keeping mum over the drama, she showed some subtle backing by liking Gregg’s Insta post hitting back at the scandal. John Torode has kept schtum too on the whole situation — though he did spill back in 2017 that off-camera, it’s far from a bromance.
Chatting to The Sunday Mirror, he dished: “It’s funny, we’ve never been friends. We’ve not been to each other’s houses… He’s so OCD, he wouldn’t know what to do.”
(Image: BBC)
Meanwhile, Gregg caused a stir on Instagram with a fired-up video responding to the criticism, potentially stirring the pot even more. Taking to his page on Sunday, he vented: “I’ve been doing MasterChef for 20 years, amateur, celebrity and professional MasterChef, and I think in that time I have worked with over 4,000 contestants of all different ages, all different backgrounds, all walks of life.
“Apparently now, I’m reading in the paper, there’s been 13 complaints in that time. In the newspaper, I can see the complaints coming from a handful of middle-class women of a certain age, just from Celebrity MasterChef. This isn’t right.
“In 20 years, over 20 years of television, can you imagine how many women, female contestants on MasterChef, have made sexual remarks, or sexual innuendo? Can you imagine?”
After catching heat for his now-deleted video which drew flak from the public, especially over calling out “middle aged women”, Gregg expressed deep regret for his words. On Monday, he issued a heartfelt statement saying: “I want to apologise for any offence that I caused with my post yesterday and any upset I may have caused to a lot of people.”
He went on to admit: “I wasn’t in a good headspace when I posted it, I’ve been under a huge amount of stress, a lot of emotion, I felt very alone, under siege yesterday, when I posted it. It’s obvious to me I need to take some time out, now, while this investigation is under way. I hope you understand and I do hope you will accept this apology.”
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
