Gregg Wallace dropped by BBC over doubts he could ‘change behaviour'
was dropped from the
BBC
after bosses concluded they had no confidence he could 'change what seems to be learned behaviour', the corporation has told him.
A letter of dismissal to the former MasterChef presenter from the head of compliance for BBC television states she cannot be sure his presence on a show would allow for 'a sufficiently safe and respectful environment' for others, the Telegraph reported.
The letter from Claire Powell, head of compliance for BBC Television, states that she took into consideration his recent diagnosis of
autism
, which Wallace himself suggested had made the MasterChef set a 'dangerous environment' for him.
She concluded that he 'struggled to distinguish the boundaries between appropriate and inappropriate behaviour in the workplace', despite being given relevant training in 2019.
READ MORE
Wallace stood aside from presenting MasterChef in November after BBC News reported a series of allegations being made against him by 13 people, who worked with Wallace across a 17-year period.
A report on his behaviour, overseen by law firm Lewis Silkin, was then commissioned by MasterChef's producers Banijay. The report's findings are expected imminently.
On Tuesday the BBC said in a statement: 'Banijay UK instructed the law firm Lewis Silkin to run an investigation into allegations against Gregg Wallace. We are not going to comment until the investigation is complete and the findings are published.'
Wallace has already admitted using inappropriate language and apologised, but
claimed earlier this week to have been cleared
of 'the most serious and sensational accusations made against me'.
Powell's letter, obtained by the Telegraph, said the corporation had taken into account that Wallace was a presenter on a flagship BBC show and referred to the 'impact that your comments had on the BBC's reputation'.
'I have also taken into account whether your behaviour could be improved with training and/or coaching,' she stated. 'However, having reviewed the 2025 findings, I do not have the confidence that you can change what seems to be learned behaviour for you to make what you perceive to be jokes in the working environment, without understanding the boundaries of what is appropriate.
'I also have to consider the fact that various people in the BBC have spoken to you about your behaviour over the course of your career, and that you also already received training/coaching in 2019.
'I do not have confidence that your behaviour can change to ensure there is a sufficiently safe and respectful environment for others working with you in the types of programmes the BBC has engaged you to present.
'Such productions are not heavily scripted programmes and involve sound and consistent levels of judgment in relation to interactions with others which cannot constantly be monitored or supervised.'
The Telegraph also reported Wallace was preparing to sue the BBC for discrimination. The 60-year-old has revealed a recent autism diagnosis. In a statement early this week, he accused the BBC of failing 'to investigate my disability or protect me from what I now realise was a dangerous environment for over 20 years'. - Guardian
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
RTÉ News
6 minutes ago
- RTÉ News
Trinny Woodall discusses husband's passing
What Not To Wear star Trinny Woodall has said there was "nothing I could have done" about her ex-husband Johnny Elichaoff's taking his own life.. On Fearne Cotton's Happy Place podcast, the 61-year-old reflected on the former drummer and businessman's death in 2014, and praised the work of charities looking into mental health and suicide. Asked about her regrets by Cotton, Woodall said: "I think going back to earlier, it's that would've, should've, could've – so do I regret that I didn't do more for my ex-husband to stop him killing himself? No, because it was nothing I could have done. "So to ponder on the regret of somebody who kills himself, it can take you into the darkest hole, but you can also know when somebody who is in that situation switches off, and that is their path and nobody can get in. "I had to learn." The make-up mogul said there are "fabulous charities" working in the area of mental health and suicide – which she said is the biggest cause of death in men under 50. She went on to speak about how she guided daughter Lyla, who was 11 at the time, through Elichaoff's death. She explained: "When I heard about Lyla's dad, Lyla was at school and my first challenge was how can I even tell her, how can I say the words to tell her. "My sister was a friend of a woman called Julia Samuel, who wrote an amazing book, Grief Works, and she's fantastic. "Julia came around to our house and I just said, 'I need some words', and so she said, 'you're going to tell her he had a heart attack in his head'."We told her (Lyla) and she screamed really loudly and it was like an animal scream, and then 20 minutes later she's downstairs getting a snack, so children's absorption of what has happened is that there's that gut, she really loved her dad. "This thing is just, she can't quite understand it, but she knows that he's not coming back in some daily way and then we had a cremation so then there's a real awareness. "There's a lot of people saying, 'I'm so sorry about your dad, Lyla', so she's manic a little, she was running around with her friends and then there was a memorial only 10 days after that, and there were 1,200 people in the church. "Lyla got up and read If, but she didn't read it, she said it with nothing and didn't cry and it wasn't that she was being strong." The beauty entrepreneur was also asked if she regrets taking drugs for a decade. She added: "I actually don't, because it gave me such a depth of having to deal with life at an early age, some testing things that it rounded me up more as a person. "When I got into my 30s, I had a lot of experience to draw on to be resilient, so thereby I don't regret that it happened and I should draw upon it." Best known for hosting BBC fashion show What Not To Wear with Susannah Constantine, Woodall is also the founder of cosmetics brand Trinny London.
Irish Times
2 hours ago
- Irish Times
Riona O Connor: ‘I was counting points on Weight Watchers when I was 15'
'Skip the bread, get ahead.' 'Summer bodies are made in winter.' 'Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.' Just thinking about slogans such as these makes Riona O Connor shudder. 'My brain is horrible,' the Kerry-born comedian says over a video call from her home outside London, as she reflects on the words beamed to her over the years from television shows, women's magazines and celebrity interviews. READ MORE 'My brain is a sh*t storm. The line 'Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels' – I bought that hook, line and sinker. But I share that with a lot of people because we were brought up in the 1990s with diet culture.' No more. These days, O Connor still hears prescriptive media messaging, particularly in summer, but she doesn't let it dictate to her. In defiance of Instagram 'thinspiration' beauty standards, O Connor has become famous for her photos and videos on the social media platform where she poses in a bikini or swimsuit but does not contort herself to suck fat in or twist her body to find sharper angles or use filters to smooth out wrinkles. O Connor faces forward and speaks frankly, persuasively and hilariously to her followers about her body, and the ridiculousness of not just wearing a bikini or swimsuit whenever you want to wear one, without feelings of shame or insecurity. O Connor is sparky, funny and warm. She has more than a million followers on her social media platforms. She receives constant feedback from fans who appreciate the empowerment messages she's offering, particularly now the pendulum seems to have swung back from a period in the 2010s where body positivity and 'glow-ups' were in vogue, to a new era where #SkinnyTok is driving the agenda to such a degree that European regulators recently convinced TikTok to ban the term as a search option. 'I do so many different things – sketches and comedy – and it just seems that, for whatever reason, me talking about how my brain works in a bikini seems to be resonating with a lot of people,' she says. 'I didn't realise people were so self-punishing. I thought people were a lot further down the road. But apparently we're all trying to figure this out together.' Riona O Connor. Photograph: Lissette Arenas O Connor is a graduate of LIPA, the performing arts institution in Liverpool co-founded by Paul McCartney. A talented singer, she arrived in England with the dream of making it in musical theatre. She landed a role in Roddy Doyle's The Commitments in the West End in 2013. But the long days and nights of musical theatre were incompatible with raising a family: O Connor has two young sons. 'It's eight shows a week, six out of seven nights. I didn't want that lifestyle.' So she turned to social media. 'It started off with me wanting to scratch the itch and sing and do sketches and share that part of myself. I started writing songs, and a lot of those songs were about the pressure to bounce back after you have a baby, and how I felt that pressure.' Growing up in Tralee, O Connor was often on a diet. 'I never had a little bum or small legs. I never fitted into that paradigm of what makes you, quote unquote, 'attractive'. I was counting points on Weight Watchers when I was 15. I was doing Slimming World. I didn't lose a pound at Slimming World because I wasn't weighing the potatoes.' She laughs. 'My ancestors were survivors. Our DNA said, 'Hang on to every bit of fat, you're going to need it to get through the war'.' [ Summer bodies: Your body is not a 'before'. It's not a problem to be solved Opens in new window ] But a point came when she realised enough was enough. She didn't want her energy taken up with worrying about food or weight. And she didn't think other people needed to be so burdened either. 'Have you ever done exposure therapy?' she asks. 'I originally did exposure therapy for my arachnophobia, because it was so horrendous. But in the live shows I do, I do a whole section on exposure therapy.' In this case, the 'exposure' is O Connor putting on a bikini and learning that the world continues to turn. 'We discover in the show: nobody's dying at the sight of my size. Everyone is alive: everyone is okay,' she says, laughing. 'It's just a person in a bikini, it's just a body. Exposure therapy is the way forward: the more we see people in different bodies, the less we're going, 'Oh my God, they're so brave!'' No matter what any algorithm spams you with, says O Connor, you can train yourself towards a healthier self-image and it will bring benefits. 'The voice is there, but you don't have to listen to it. I've found [being] brutally vulnerable and honest about my body is freeing. It's given me confidence because I don't have to pretend to be something I'm not.' Follow Riona O Connor on Instagram @rionaoconnor_ and , where details for her spring 2026 shows in Ireland will soon be announced. The helpline is at 01-2107906, or email alex@
Irish Times
2 hours ago
- Irish Times
Why did CMAT have to sell out the 3Arena before she could get exposure on Irish radio?
Two reports published this month tell an interesting story about the Irish music industry. One by the Irish Music Rights Organisation (IMRO) and compiled by CORE Research, showed Ireland's music industry generates €1 billion annually. The average adult in Ireland spends almost €1,000 on music-related products and services annually. In 2024, €375 million was spent on streaming services in Ireland, with €786 million spent on live events. The industry employs more than 13,400 people, but only 43 per cent of those working in the music sector hold full-time positions. This rises to 68 per cent for IMRO members, who rely on jobs in other sectors. The second report was published by Why Not Her?, an organisation that examines gender disparity in radio play. That report compiled Irish radio play data between January 1st and July 1st 2025. During that period, just 14 Irish acts appeared in the top 100 most played songs on Irish radio, while the other 86 per cent of the top 100 chart was made up of international acts. Only three female solo Irish artists featured; CMAT , Jazzy, and Allie Sherlock. Contrast this with the UK. In 2024, UK radio had more women than men in the top 100 for the first time. Woman artists accounted for 41 per cent of the top 100 artists, male artists 39 per cent, with mixed-gender collaborations at 20 per cent. In 2023, 48 per cent of artists played on radio there were UK artists. When it comes to Irish radio play, we have a gender, genre, and geographic issue. READ MORE In 2020, Eamon Ryan shot down the idea that there could be a quota for music by Irish artists on radio. In 2016, a bill calling for a 40 per cent quota of Irish music on radio was defeated in the Dáil. While we don't necessarily need a legislative or regulatory commitment (although that is something Comisiún na Meán could consider), there is nothing stopping stations themselves from making a policy commitment. I gave Molly King – the head of development at Other Voices , an entity that has long-championed and platformed Irish talent, both emerging and established – a call to discuss this. The importance of radio play is multifaceted, but King pointed out that at a fundamental level, 'radio play is still a viable source of income for artists in a way that streaming obviously doesn't deliver'. She articulated a 'disorientating' feeling when considering the support for Irish artists on UK radio, particularly the BBC. 'And the thing is,' King says, 'a lot of these acts Irish radio are not playing are commercially successful musicians. Festivals book so many Irish acts. You can stack Irish headliners and still sell tickets in a way that feels consistent. But we have this cultural aversion on commercial radio to playing Irish. Nobody seems to be able to explain it to me. It's a disconnect. Why is CMAT reaching the level she is at now on Irish radio, after she has sold out the 3Arena? Because she has become unignorable? UK radio has embraced her for years. This thing of 'we will pay attention to you when other people pay attention to you'? I don't get it. It hasn't changed enough on Irish radio over the years. It would benefit the stations. It would benefit the brands of stations. It's easy. Just do it.' The DJs and stations that do play Irish artists consistently need to be commended. But we need more of it, particularly across commercial radio, and especially to address the gender disparity. The Irish artists that fill arenas around the world today didn't arrive fully formed. They developed. Yet during that development, something many of them tended to lack as they progressed is consistent Irish radio play. [ Irish female artists make up just 2% of most-played songs on Irish radio in past year – report Opens in new window ] While I would love this context to change overnight, an easy commitment Irish radio could make would be to choose a few of weeks of the year to play only music of Ireland. This should be diverse in gender, genre, and geography. [ New Irish albums reviewed: Sons of Southern Ulster, Poor Creature, Darragh Morgan, The Swell Season and California Irish Opens in new window ] The artists we love have created an incredible wave of contemporary music and send their creative transmissions around the globe. But we need to amplify them on Irish radio – not from a position of territorialism or nationalism, but from one of support and pride. Quality is not an issue. There is plenty of it. Changing this matters for musicians' incomes, prospective opportunities, exposure and affirmation. It would be a validating exercise for artists, industry and audiences alike. Referencing this year's Glastonbury, King reeled off the names of Irish acts who were the talk of the festival. 'I don't want to get stuck in the 'Irish Wave' thing. What's happening is a steady development and self-possession of Irish people stepping into their culture instead of feeling obliged to imitate. There's a degree of confidence ... That should really be translated to radio. That loop needs to be connected. It feels like the last node in the circuit. If we supported our artists the way BBC 6 Music supports UK artists, we would be off to the races. These are things that are eminently fixable and we can do them.'
