PENNY Lancaster savages Gregg Wallace in her new autobiography – claiming he was threatening towards her, harassed her and left her in floods of tears on MasterChef.
The Loose Women star, who competed on the BBC cooking show in 2021, gave evidence against the disgraced host which saw him sacked earlier this year.
Gregg Wallace comes under attack in Penny Lancaster’s new autobiography[/caption]
Penny recalls ‘shaking’ with fear fear after a nasty confrontation with Gregg on the set of MasterChef[/caption]
Her new memoir, Someone Like Me, comes out tomorrow[/caption]
In her memoir, Someone Like Me, Penny, 54, admits she wasn’t planning on writing about MasterChef or Gregg but felt compelled after speaking to the investigation team who were probing his conduct.
She writes: “No woman should ever go to work fearing they will be bullied or harassed, or arrive home knowing that they have been.”
Recalling Gregg’s “bullying” behaviour, Penny – who is married to Sir Rod Stewart – said she initially believed it would be John Torode who would give her a hard time but later learnt it was Gregg, 60, who would cause her issues.
Penny says she wasn’t alone in being made to feel uncomfortable by Gregg and claims he was “crass” towards her co-star Melanie Sykes.
Of his threatening behaviour, Penny recalls Gregg stealing a flower from one of her dishes in what appeared to be a bid to derail her in the competition.
Explaining the brief was to create two identical dishes, Penny explains that Gregg purposefully stole a flower from her creation – and when she asked for it back he refused.
She writes: “Normally Wallace wandered around the studio with a stuck-on smile, but all I could see now was a thunderous stare.
“Then he marched over to my station with my tray and slammed it down. ‘I’m the judge and I make all the decisions”, he said menacingly, before heading back.”
Penny says the incident left her “shaking” and that no one spoke out to diffuse the situation, including John or the production team who she says all saw what had unfolded.
Refusing to be cowed, Penny recalls how she confronted Gregg again but claims he acted in a more threatening manner.
She writes: “He stared at me, reached into his pocket, took out the orchid and dropped it on the floor in front of him. ‘There you go, there’s your flower,’ he snapped.
“Thinking about it now, I wonder why I bent down and picked it up.
“It was such a demeaning position to be placed in, as if his behaviour was part of a massive power-play.”
Admitting she was upset that no one spoke out, Penny recalls thinking: “Is that it?
“Is no one going to call out this harassment?”
Following the incident, Penny says she left the studio in tears and said not a single person from the production team spoke to her about the incident.
After she left the competition, Penny says she felt relieved that she no longer had to work alongside Gregg.
Recalling her exit scene which saw her in tears, she writes: “There was a very real context to those tears that was never explained to the viewer.
“It really did feel like no one cared.”
Penny goes to write about speaking out against Gregg in the BBC and production company Banijay’s probe into his conduct.
She reveals she was on jury service when the first allegations came to light in The Sun and says she had no clue her husband Rod, 80, would post about Gregg on Instagram – describing him as a “tubby, bald-headed, ill-mannered bully”.
In Someone Like Me, Penny adds: “I can only think his outburst towards me was a simple recipe of old-fashioned misogyny topped off with a sprinkling of ageism.”
The Sun has contacted Gregg’s rep for comment.
Penny took part in the show in 2021[/caption]
Sir Rod Stewart stuck up for his wife in a furious Instagram post[/caption]
