The BBC’s chief content officer has said the corporation “acted fast” after misconduct allegations against former MasterChef presenter Gregg Wallace.
Wallace, 60, issued an apology saying he was “deeply sorry for any distress caused” and that he “never set out to harm or humiliate”, after a review said 45 out of 83 allegations made against him were upheld.
Speaking at the Edinburgh TV Festival, Kate Phillips said: “I think when complaints came to me about Greg Wallace, which was 2019, when I dealt with it, I always dealt with it straightaway.
“So there were two complaints. I dealt with them. I acted on them fast.
“I think we weren’t as joined-up in the BBC as we are now, so I didn’t know about some of the historical things that had taken place.
“So if I’d known about those at the time, yes, I may have acted differently, but I acted on the information I was given.
“I think I acted responsibly. I left him in no doubt of the expected behaviour that we expect at the BBC, if you like.
“I stand by the actions I took at the time with the knowledge that I had.”
She added: “Other allegations didn’t come to us until much later, sort of at the end of 2023, and at that point we did act, and we acted fast.”
In November 2024, the show’s production company, Banijay UK, announced that Wallace would step away from his role on MasterChef while historical allegations of misconduct were investigated.
At the time, a BBC spokesman said it took any issues raised with them “seriously” and “any behaviour which falls below the standards expected by the BBC will not be tolerated”.
The report found that the “majority of the allegations against Mr Wallace (94%) related to behaviour which is said to have occurred between 2005 and 2018”, and only one allegation was substantiated after 2018.
Of the substantiated claims outlined in the report, some related to inappropriate language, being in a state of undress, and one case of unwanted physical contact.
Wallace’s co-presenter John Torode was the subject of an allegation of using racist language, which was upheld, as part of the Lewis Silkin report, and also left the show.
The 21st series of MasterChef, which was filmed last year and stars Torode and Wallace, is currently airing on BBC One.
Two MasterChef contestants have been edited out of the series after deciding they would not like to be included, following the report.
Phillips also spoke about the controversy around BBC’s Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone documentary, which was removed from BBC iPlayer in February after it emerged that the child narrator, Abdullah, is the son of Ayman Alyazouri, who has worked as Hamas’s deputy minister of agriculture.
Asked if the controversy would impact future commissioning from an impartiality perspective, she said: “Impartiality is at the core of everything we do.
“We will always commission those sort of brave, strong stories and tell the stories that need to be heard. And I’m very confident we’ll keep doing that going forward.”
Before Phillips was announced as the permanent chief content officer of the BBC earlier this year, she was controller of BBC One, after leading its entertainment team and BBC Worldwide’s formats team.
