Gregg Wallace: I've bloody heard it all now

[SidewaysOtter]

https://www.thetimes.com/article/048274a6-0f4d-4840-a6d6-a762f3cd89b4?shareToken=c179de101201f5ff427273be03361fa3

Apparently, in addition to him being the "true victim" in the BBC's investigation (see his statement of yesterday on Instagram where "nothing was done to investigate my disability" or "protect me from...a dangerous environment"), his "friends" now claim that incidents such as him opening doors with a sock on his penis while he shouted "hooray" were due to his autism which, in turn, meant he couldn't wear underwear.

I have no words other than to say I know quite a few autistic people. Not one of them behaves as, or uses autism to excuse being, a sex pest.

Whoever is doing his crisis PR has really pulled out all the stops.

It's not no.

But what happened at the time ? Was he reported immediately? Was it voiced very clearly that it wasn't funny and was unacceptable?

Or did people laugh and titter along and then tell a newspaper how shocked and distressed they were ? It's just rather underhand when people dont confront the person at the time and let them carry on thinking everyone finds it funny and are ok with the 'tone' and then several years later deciding they're a victim.

It doesn't make his behaviour acceptable. Definitely not. But I do think it can be a bandwagon type culture with these type of accusations of lewdness.

But I do think there is a culture of hunting down men on TV for behaviour that once was considered 'ok' (over flirtatious behaviour towards females guests/sexist 'banter' for example) and publicly witch-hunting them and judging them by today's standards.

Unfortunately I think Mr Wallace lost my sympathy when he tried to blame us uppity old bags "middle class women of a certain age" for making a fuss. He could have just said "look I was a twat and I apologise" and I'd have much more respect for him. The fact that he's now trying to blame it on autism is another level of pathetic.

Helena Kennedy answered this very well on Newsnight - when was it ever acceptable to put your hand up a woman's skirt?

As other posters have said, 'historic' doesn't apply here. And it often doesn't when people talk about 'different times' before political correctness, or wokeness, made it all walking-on-eggshells-ish.

So GW started groping women and exposing himself 20 years ago - that was not 1756 or 1066 or 1953, it was the year 2000! 'Today's standards' were well and truly in effect in 2000, the modern women's movement was already decades old.

So if men got away with doing things to women that would have been equally obnoxious in 1900 or 2000, isn't it more reasonable to be angry that they weren't held to account sooner, rather than calling it a 'witch-hunt' when they are eventually called out on their behaviour towards women?

2021
Former presenter Melanie Sykes made an informal complaint against Wallace after her time on MasterChef.

In a video posted in December 2024, she said: "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."

She also claimed she quit TV because of Wallace in her 2024 autobiography.

2022
In 2022, another woman alleged that he touched her bottom during a group hug in a lift in 2022.

2023
Wallace quit the BBC show Inside The Factory, which he had co-presented for a decade, after alleged inappropriate behaviour during a trip to a Nestle factory.

You have agreed this was never acceptable behaviour then blame the victims for not reporting it!

Fuck off Greg. I'm bipolar and yet have never been a sexist cunt. My DH and adult DS are autistic and have never been sexist wankers or put a sock on their willies. How dare he. It's so pathetic to use a disability to excuse this behaviour.

Well, it's what you've been waiting for. He's started a life coaching business. You can be just like him for £200 pm. So forget the slim jabs and divert your dosh to Greg.

Victim blaming has not died I see. Edited to add that surely you know that when faced with a predator people won't react in a negative way for fear of escalation. And will then minimise because they feel bad that they didn't respond at the time. Which is how these cunts get away with it.

Never. And the day after never. Not even in the '70s

It does say something about BBC culture that he got away with it for so long.

The only thing that surprises me is that they never thought of casting him as Doctor Who.

Gives new meaning to "bring your whole self to work".

I have misjudged him, I didn't realise the he's autistic, I just thought he was a wanker.

As far as the autism claim is concerned, if is not true - and up to late 2024 GW said he had never been tested let alone diagnosed with autism - it is a despicable use of disability as a cover for offensive behaviour towards women.

If it is true, meaning he has been diagnosed in the past few months, how is that relevant to his former employers/the programme-makers? [I'm not sure about his employment status]?

How can he accuse them of failing to 'protect me from what I now realise was a dangerous environment for over twenty years' when even he didn't now he had autism? Were they supposed to mind-read, or look 20 years into the future to learn that he was going to be diagnosed in 2025, and make proper arrangements to 'protect' him - or protect his female colleagues from him, more likely?

Either way, it's not a great defence because it feels too much like the RVO part of DARVO - reverse victim and offender - and a cynical retrospective use of disability as an excuse for inexcusable behaviour.

See, any alternative viewpoint is met with these extreme accusations "victim blamer" .

Why do you do that ? It just shuts down any balance. I've explained exactly my view point in my above post and nowhere in it have I said it's the women's fault for his behaviour.

I'm not going to spend the next 5 pages pretzling myself to prove I don't think women are the problem. I'm not defending what I didn't say.

You can now name call me, make goady accusations to make me reply and all the rest of it . But I'm leaving my opinion up as it is just as valid as yours.

Er, hang on a second - if you’ve met 1 autistic person then you’ve met 1 autistic person

However, GW is a wankstain on the moral fibre of the diagnostic process

Nasty, nasty individual. As you were [deep bow]

You say you didn't explicitly blame women, in fairness, you referred to 'people' not women:
It's just rather underhand when people dont confront the person at the time and let them carry on thinking everyone finds it funny and are ok with the 'tone' and then several years later deciding they're a victim.,

It's just that the 'people' in this case who are underhand and belatedly 'decide' they are victims happen to be..women.

So in fairness, you blamed 'people' and not women; but in fairness, Shenmen wasn't conjuring 'victim-blaming' out of nowhere, was she? and in fairness it wasn't an 'extreme accusation', was it? It wasn't name-calling or goady, it reacted to you saying that some 'people' are not genuine victims. That seems fair enough. You may not agree, but that's the way discussions go - viewpoint/alternative viewpoint/discussion of viewpoints..

I wouldn't agree that Shenmen's post is 'extreme', and I don't see how it shuts down balance, so if you decide not to continue this discussion, which is entirely up to you, I don't think it's fair to suggest that it's because of Shenmen's post.

It's up to you whether or not you want to continue, you seemed to have reached the end of your wish to engage, but you can always come back and explain what people you are accusing of belatedly 'deciding they are a victim', if you did not mean the women in the GW case.

God he is abhorrent.

The rest of us autistics who have sensory issues dish out the extra cash for sensory friendly underwear, not theatrically flash our colleagues.

You're ignoring the power dynamic in many of the cases though. A number of the women have said the were in fear of losing their jobs if they made a fuss, some of them did report it at the time to managers and were brushed off, because "the talent" is always more important than the production staff, many of whom are freelancers with little job security.

So it really isn't a case of people laughing along at the time and only subsequently deciding they were victims, it's the very familiar story of women's concerns about safety and harassment being swept under the carpet because they're inconvenient.

Hopefully, cases like this will help victims be listened to and not ignored for the sake of the celebrity. Management need to take complaints seriously.

In most of these cases there has been a power imbalance or an acceptance that nothing will happen or just sheer embarrassment.

Years ago I was sexually harassed by a male partner at work, I was a junior and didn’t feel able to complain. My male manager happened to hear about one particular incident after I had been talking to some of my female colleagues. Next thing I knew 2 other male partners came up to my desk (in an open plan office) to ask about this incident and whether I wanted to take it further. I was so embarrassed, I just mumbled it’s okay.These partners didn’t like the other one, so I don’t think they were trying to protect me, rather find a way of getting rid of the other one (and these 2 weren’t exactly squeaky clean either) Hopefully, nowadays HR and preferably female colleague would have dealt with this much more discreetly and follow process.

I’m autistic and have been answering the door with socks hanging off my bare nipples and a glove shoved up my arse crack.

Is that not the done thing? I can’t believe no one ever told me this.

Thankfully Greggggggg only made his totally innocent social faux pas around women. His is the type of autism that makes him accidentally act like a sexual predator. Weirdly though, only seems to affect autistic men like Greggggg, not autistic women. Poor love.

Such a farkin insult to anyone autistic to claim autism as his defence for his creepy perversions.
Funny though, that his ‘sensory issues’ don’t include the sweaty, intense heat of a kitchen .. the smells of cooking .. the textures of food that he’s shovelling away.. social communication..as a tv presenter.. oh and it appears effortless to him to look everyone straight in the eyes with no problem …
maybe it’s just me ….. 🤔

More than 10 complaints at the time they happened dating back to ye olden days of 2012...so no people women weren't OK with it at the time. Others might have thought there was no point complaining at the time, because nothing would come of it....which is not an unreasonable assumption....given how long it took

This speaks to an organisational culture where inappropriate behaviour and or language was/is tolerated and speaking up is viewed as trouble making. Master chef programme was contracted out meaning that BBC systems failed to influence their supply chain and their monitoring or auditing systems were found lacking. As a man I couldn't imagine doing some of the alleged inappropriate behaviour and sexual harrassment regardless of the era.

It reminds me of a former landlord. When I was in my 20s, I lived in a flat at the top of his house with a couple of female students. Every time his wife was away, he would walk around in his pants on the stairwell and try to hug us. He got really angry when I challenged him and said he couldn’t wear clothes because he’d once had cancer and they made him too hot. The stuff these men come out with is utterly despicable.

And your post reminded me of a case in the UK where a man's defence was similar. I don't remember whether he was eventually cleared, but it wouldn't surprise me if he was

Rape Subject Tripped (Independent 2015)