Gregg Wallace reportedly said he suffered from a ‘suspected heart attack’ ahead of the release of a BBC report featuring 50 more claims against him.
The former Masterchef host, 60, was officially sacked from the broadcaster after an external investigation into a string of historical allegations levelled at him of inappropriate behaviour last year – all of which Wallace has denied.
Just days before the Silkins report was set to be released, a source has told The Sun that the TV personality claimed he went to the hospital in Kent after suffering chest pains.
‘The stress of this betrayal brought on my suspected heart attack. It’s been hell,’ he reportedly told a friend.
Yesterday, he took to Instagram to claim the report cleared him of ‘the most serious and sensational accusations’ in a lengthy statement defending his innocence after ’21 years of loyal service to the BBC’.
‘I cannot sit in silence while my reputation is further damaged to protect others,’ he declared.
He accused the BBC of ‘peddling baseless and sensationalised gossip’ with ‘legally unsafe accusations’ and later claimed the report found him ‘primarily guilty of inappropriate language between 2005 and 2018’.
‘I recognise some of my humour and language, at times was inappropriate. For that, I apologise without reservation. But I was never the caricature now sold for clicks,’ he wrote.
Meanwhile, a source for the Sun added that he was ‘both furious and devastated about how things have played out’.
Wallace was initially removed from the hit cooking reality series – which he judged alongside John Torode – at the end of last year.
Accusations made against him at the time included making lewd comments on set, groping a Masterchef worker, pulling his trousers down in front of another and inappropriate sexual jokes.
Per the Telegraph, one former production member described an alleged incident in which he held her head and thrust his body towards her, mimicking a sex act, while she knelt to clean a mark from his trousers.
The complaints range across a 17-year period, with several high-profile figures speaking out about their own experiences including Kirsty Wark and Kirstie Allsopp, after he claimed the accusations were coming from ‘middle-class women of a certain age’.
Wallace and his lawyers have said ‘it is entirely false that he engages in behaviour of a sexually harassing nature’.
In April, as the nine-month review into the misconduct allegations was ongoing, Wallace told the Daily Mail he had been having suicidal thoughts about whether things would be ‘better’ for his wife if he ‘wasn’t ‘here’.
Afterwards, he said that he had nothing more to add.
In a statement on his Instagram, he wrote: ‘I’ve opened my heart, and that has to be enough.
‘There will be a lot of noise, I get that, but I won’t be joining in. I need space to heal and to be with the people who know who I really am.’
There is currently no confirmation on who will replace Wallace on Masterchef although reports suggest it will be Saturday Kitchen star Matt Tebbutt, 51, who takes over.
Metro has reached out to Gregg Wallace’s representatives for comment.
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