Gregg Wallace was the reason I quit, says ex-presenter Melanie Sykes


Gregg Wallace was the reason I quit, says ex-presenter Melanie Sykes

Published: 01:40 GMT, 3 December 2024 Melanie Sykes revealed that spending time with Gregg Wallace on Celebrity MasterChef in 2021 made her walk away from her television career as Vanessa Feltz today claimed the star told a lewd sex story about him and his wife in a BBC lift. Writing in her book, the former presenter, 54, claimed Wallace greeted her on the show by asking if models eat food, which she said she found 'unprofessional' and laced with 'ignorance and disrespect'. Sykes also said the grocer-turned broadcaster, 60, spent time 'barking orders' in such a manner that made her want to leave the show. And Wallace apparently told her that appearing on his show would do a lot for her career prospects. Sykes said: 'I didn't know what to say, so I smiled and said "yes", but I was really thinking, "Yes, you have finally helped me decide to end my television career once and for all".' Melanie said she made an informal complaint against Wallace, and claimed she found conduct on the MasterChef set 'jaw-dropping'. Broadcaster Vanessa Feltz last night claimed that Wallace had described a sex act he had performed on his wife while in a BBC lift with her friend. And a former MasterChef staffer, who worked on the show from 2007 to 2010, claimed she was aware of at least six production members who raised concerns about Wallace's conduct. Wallace claimed over the weekend that complaints were from a 'handful of middle-class women of a certain age'. Mel Sykes is best known for the Boddingtons advert in the 1990s and as the co-host of Today with Des and Mel in the early 2000s. She made the comments about Wallace in her autobiography, titled Illuminated, which was published last year, and expanded on them in recent days in a video posted on YouTube. In her book, Sykes wrote: 'The MasterChef experience continued to be an eye-opener, and some unprofessional behaviour on set was jaw-dropping.' In her recent YouTube video she said that 'every time Gregg came over to the desk, I didn't really like him being around really because it's all about vibrations and energy'.