When the annual calendar event occurs, and another high-profile, well-loved and respected male television personality wakes up to numerous accounts of misdemeanours of a sexual nature, the public tends to expect the following behaviour:
The accused holds his head low, away from prying eyes and hungry media hot-heads.
He bites his tongue shut according to his lawyer’s strict instruction to stay under the radar and avoid adding fuel to the fire.
He gives the accusations the space in society they need and waits anxiously for the ‘problem’ to die down.
However, the same recipe for saving what is left of one’s dignity cannot be said for Gregg Wallace. Waking up to a surge in sexual and inappropriate conduct allegations set against him, Wallace, one of the BBC’s hall-of-fame TV personalities from MasterChef, took to his Instagram story to make his side heard.
The 60-year-old barely allowed the dust to settle before going and sticking his foot in it: “These comments are from middle-class women of a certain age”, he declares, glaring into the camera. For Wallace, women of a working-class background don’t mind sexual jokes and dirty remarks thrown their way. It seems, after all, that Wallace can’t handle the heat. Instead of pouring petrol all over the pan, he should have left the kitchen and let the allegations settle.
Last week, the Sun tabloid published a splash exposing Wallace’s seedy and certainly hard-to-swallow behaviour towards women and staff on the set of Strictly Come Dancing in 2014. When Wallace entered the ballroom stage, he brought with him a distasteful pleasure for goading his sexual proclivities to several women on set, both short and long-term staff members, and even some of the professional dancers. Videos are beginning to come out showing Wallace displaying his cheeky barrow-boy humour as he makes crude remarks about his lack of underwear to his dance partner, Aliona Villani.
Did the BBC ignore Wallace’s missteps in the TV dance world? Knowing what the public knows now, this isn’t merely a display of a ‘boys will be boys’ attitude because, lest we forget, Wallace is not a boy, and this is not a sandpit he’s treading in.
Other women have since come forward after the Sun’s splash, leaving the BBC to perform yet another flawed demonstration of damage control. But I’m confident that many of the PR representatives behind Operation ‘Get Wallace to Pipe Down’ are also made up of ‘middle-class women of a certain age’. And now, with the news that his Ghost Writer, Shannon Kyle, was allegedly sexually assaulted by Wallace during their time spent writing his memoir, Life On A Plate, things are only looking down for the face of MasterChef.
Abusing his high-profile position of power, Wallace groped, exposed himself and told Kyle obscene things about his love life, constantly pushing for her to get in bed with him at any given chance. Sexually lewd comments are disturbing, but asking someone who is essentially your colleague to touch your private parts is sickening.
And what angle has the BBC taken on the issue, I hear you ask? In a spokesperson’s statement, they have essentially attempted to remove Wallace from the corporation’s picture, “He is not employed by the BBC.”
In recent years, the BBC’s faulty attempts at damage control have been set out by Philip Schofield, Huw Edwards and Russel Brand (although Brand has found Jesus in the wake of his disgusting accusations). But how can things settle down when people’s real lives are at stake? It’s only been 5 years since Caroline Flack took her life after allegations of domestic abuse led to a mob gush of hate thrown her way.
I would have assumed this must be pretty terrifying for Wallace, but after his Instagram antics, I can’t say I have much sympathy. However, if we aren’t careful, allowing a mass revolt against another public figure may result in loss of life again.
The BBC needs to understand that situations like these are incredibly delicate. So, getting the Prime Minister to make a less-than-helpful statement on the issue only creates more stigma and more fear for victims with stories of assault. Would you like the PM to air out your dirty washing? I don’t think so; I doubt he knows how to.
As long as men are allowed to say and do whatever they want in society, and women are told never to be loud or make a fuss, sexually unnerving comments will continue in the TV, film, and Hell, even the service industry. Bringing in the big guns from Mr Starmer just won’t help.
Instead, let women speak and let the allegations speak for themselves. Most importantly, if you catch your mate in the pub cornering a girl, calling her a tart, or telling her that she would be lucky ‘to have a go’ on his private parts, do him, her and yourself a favour and ask him to stop. Be that guy.
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