Vanessa Feltz has doubled down on her claims about Gregg Wallace’s alleged conduct.
In December, the presenter, 63, accused Wallace, 60, of describing a sex act he’d partaken in with his wife to Feltz’s friend and former colleague in a BBC lift.
Wallace - who stepped down from MasterChef last year after multiple misconduct allegations - recently shared his surprise at Feltz’s claims, insisting they had “always got on well”.
He told the Mail last week: “Vanessa Feltz really knocked me for six. She had a story from a friend of hers who said she'd overheard me saying something sexual in a lift. I've always got on well with Vanessa. I've been on her show. We even swapped messages on social media.”
Wallace, who denies the misconduct allegations, added: “I'm thinking, 'Really, Vanessa, you're weighing in with something someone else told you that I was supposed to have said in a lift? I thought you liked me.’”
Now, Feltz has reiterated her claims about Wallace, saying she wasn’t “searching for a story” about him and that it had “nothing to do with me ‘not liking’ him”.
Writing for the Daily Express, the Celebs Go Dating star said the friend was a former male colleague who she has “trusted” for 15 years.
She stated that she had mentioned to her friend the claim Kirstie Allsopp made that Wallace had described a sexual act with his wife in front of her - and her friend claimed “exactly” the same thing happened to him.
She claimed her friend said: “In the lift he suddenly described a graphic sexual act he said he had enjoyed with his girlfriend. There was a young woman in the lift. She looked shaken and I was pretty disgusted too.”
The man was allegedly a BBC producer who had to collect Wallace from the foyer at Broadcasting House and take him to a studio.
Feltz wrote: “Gregg, it was a he, not a she. You probably remember him. He's a sportsman. He didn't 'overhear' it, you said it to him.
“I wasn't searching for a story about your conduct, it found me organically. Making it public had nothing to do with me ‘not liking you’ at all.”
The former greengrocer’s lawyers say “it is entirely false that he engages in behaviour of a sexually harassing nature”.
The Standard has contacted Wallace’s representative for comment.
Last year, Wallace was accused of inappropriate behaviour by 13 people across a range of shows over a 17-year period, prompting him to leave his MasterChef co-hosting gig with John Torode.
The findings from the investigation into Wallace’s alleged misconduct will be made public next month.
