The festive schedule has seen MasterChef taken out following continuing allegations against the host…
Last week, Wallace withdrew from his role as a presenter on MasterChef following a BBC News investigation that brought to light allegations of inappropriate sexual remarks and behaviour attributed to him. The corporation have now confirmed that two festive specials are not going to air over the Christmas period.
A BBC spokesperson:
“As we have said, MasterChef is an amazing competition which is life-changing for the chefs taking part and the current series of MasterChef: The Professionals is continuing as planned. The celebrity Christmas specials are obviously a different type of show and in the current circumstances we have decided not to broadcast them.”
One of the specials was to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Strictly Come Dancing while the other a Celebrity MasterChef Christmas Cook Off, featured The Wanted singer Max George, Emmerdale regular Amy Walsh, reality star Luca Bish and comedian Shazia Mirza.
Wallace apologised for claiming the allegations were being made by ‘middle class women of a certain age‘ which led to Downing Street criticising his comments as “inappropriate and misogynistic”.
Labour Party grandee Baroness Harriet Harman told LBC’s Andrew Marr that she does not ‘think the Beeb should be airing’ upcoming shows with Gregg Wallace. Speaking on Tonight with Andrew Marr, Baroness Harman also told Andrew that the BBC is ‘misjudging’ the situation if they believe Wallace’s ‘phoney apology’ is enough for him to continue being seen in the pre-recorded cook-off series, telling LBC that she believes Gregg Wallace, ‘should take it on board and acknowledge that he has been offensive, he has been downright rude.’
Speaking to LBC yesterday Baroness Harriet Harman said:
‘I don’t think the BBC should be airing these programmes, and he [Gregg Wallace] hasn’t actually apologised. He’s done this kind of phoney apology, where he says, ‘I’m sorry if anybody’s offended.’ Actually, he should take it on board and acknowledge that he has been offensive, he has been downright rude, and it is not the job of presenters to trash a whole load of viewers who hitherto have enjoyed watching the programme.
“But I, for one, am not going to be watching it. And I think that it shows a bit of disrespect by the BBC, if they think this sort of semi-apology means that is all right for him to go on air. I think that they are misjudging what is the right way for people to go about things now.’
The current episodes of the remaining series of MasterChef are still scheduled to air on BBC One.
