Everything Is Content - Everything in Conversation: MasterChef's Gregg Wallace & Allegations of Sexual Harassment

Episode Date: December 11, 2024

Happy Everything In Conversation day! The EIC newsroom has been flooded with allegations of cheating, pump and dumps and new celeb pregnancies. Listen to get your essential briefing on the world of pop culture. This week on extra episode, we tackled the allegations against MasterChef co-presenter Gregg Wallace. A BBC investigation unearthed 13 people's testimonies of sexual harassment from the presenter and across five different shows. Last week he responded saying allegations against him came from "a handful of middle-class women of a certain age". Thank you so much for messaging in with such insightful, interesting takes. Follow us on Instagram @everythingiscontentpod so you can be involved in all future discussions.See you Friday for the main ep!---------------MasterChef's Gregg Wallace steps aside after allegationsGregg Wallace: I spend two hours every Saturday by myself playing computer strategy gamesAutism to blame for my inappropriate actions, Gregg Wallace expected to tell inquiryRachel Johnson: the storm over Gregg Wallace shows we've all gone mad — I stand with himThe unfiltered world of Gregg Wallace’s Instagram Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Beth I'm Richira and I'm Anoni and this is everything in conversation this is an extra episode we release every Wednesday where we deliver you a first-class package of shiny new content we'll update you on the biggest strangest and most talked about pop culture stories from the week before taking on a topic or discussion with you as the other half of the conversation remember if you want to take part in these extra episodes just follow us on instagram at everything is content pod because that's where all these discussions go down i also need to pause here and do a little bit of a noise disclaimer as you might be able to hear my audio is not as good as usual my laptop had an argument with my microphone and so I'm just using the built-in microphone. I'm in London, it's noisy, it's windy, please bear with me. And on to this week's topic,

the emerging allegations about TV presenter and writer Greg Wallace, his rebuttal to the women speaking out and how the media are responding. But first, the headlines from the EIC newsroom. The CEO of United Healthcare, Brian Thompson, was killed in a targeted shooting outside of a hotel in Manhattan last Wednesday. The NYPD reported that the suspect had been waiting for Mr Thompson to arrive. After fatally shooting him, he escaped on a city bike. People on the internet have been thirsting over images of the alleged suspect and police revealed that Monopoly money was recovered from a backpack

thought to belong to the suspect. Despite being the biggest publishing debut of 2024, fans have been pointing out typos, low quality images and various graphic design blunders in Taylor Swift's latest coffee table book, The Ears Tour Book. The book is selling exclusively through Target and bypassed using a traditional publisher. Nicole Kidman tells Hollywood Reporter she thinks it's a compliment to be memed. Quote,

You've got to let go and be able to make fun of yourself. It's very much an Australian trait, but I think it's a necessary trait for life. I know who I am. I try to stay deeply focused on my authentic self and stay with that. But let's wait and see what happens with the memes from Baby Girl.

I may be terribly upset the next time you talk to me. Also for the record, Baby Girl is out in cinemas on Christmas Day. The short prince and princess of Hollywood reportedly split after a year-long romance as Barry Keoghan has been hit with claims that he cheated on Sabrina Carpenter. He subsequently shared a rare public statement condemning fans' disgusting behaviour following the allegations, tweeting, Jacob Elordi has divided fans with his new rugged appearance after sporting a big bushy beard at the Marrakesh Film Festival. Hawk Tour Girl, aka Hayley Welch, is facing backlash after starting a meme coin and losing a lot of people a lot of money. The token hit $500 million before crashing below a mere $60

million in just 20 minutes. Last week, Benny, a psychic horse based in Berkshire, correctly predicted that Chapel Roan would headline Reading and Leeds Festival in 2025. The line-up released also includes Hosier, The Kooks, Bring Me the Horizon, Suki Waterhouse and Travis Scott. Wicked has been named the best film of the year by the National Board of Review. Some are taking this as a sign that the film, which has now made over $350 million worldwide, could be tipped for some serious Oscar nominations in January. People magazine are reporting that Amber Heard is pregnant with her second child. The 38-year-old actress is already a parent to three-year-old Una Page. Mattie Healy has publicly apologised after getting into a Twitter argument with Azealia Banks and

threatening to slap her. The argument seems to have begun after Banks slighted Healy's friend Charlie XCX, tweeting that she used to be so pretty. Banks and Healy went back and forth a few times. She insulted his looks, his fiancé's looks, his music, his teeth. He called her jealous, told her to focus on rapping, and said he would slap her so hard, I'll get a Guinness World Record for the highest a rat some bitch calls a wig has ever flown. His account is now deleted.

She is threatening legal action. Molly May shared the first teaser for a new Amazon Prime special titled Molly May Behind It All, set to drop January 17th. And that's all from the headlines this week. Quick trigger warning at the top of this episode. We are going to mention allegations of sexual assault, so do listen with caution. So the weekend before last, it was reported that the BBC had been told of claims against one of their presenters, 60-year-old Greg Wallace, who has co-hosted and judged MasterChef with John

Turode since 2005. The allegations of sexually inappropriate comments and behaviour were aired on BBC News and initially came from 13 people and spanned several different programmes over 17 years that Wallace had worked on. More have since emerged. Some of those who have come forward with allegations are Kirsty Walk, a former presenter on BBC Newslight, who alleges sexualised language on set. Sir Rod Stewart speaking on behalf of his wife Penny Lancaster, who said on Instagram that he made her cry. Author and actor Emma Kennedy, who says she believes she saw Wallace touch the bottom of a young woman working on set. Presenter Kirsty Alsop who tweeted that she witnessed him behaving

inappropriately. Former MasterChef contestant Jackie Kearney who says that Greg made her cry and made sexual innuendos and remarks constantly. And Greg's ghostwriter Shannon Kyle who has accused him of answering the door in only a towel, dropping the towel, making revolting sexual suggestions and touching her inappropriately. She says that while they're a towel, dropping the towel, making revolting sexual suggestions and touching her inappropriately. She says that while they're a meal together under the purview of writing the book, he said as she ate her dessert, what would you think if I put some of the eaten mess you're eating on my willy then? Other accusers have remained anonymous but include production staff on his shows. Since the allegations came out, the BBC have pulled two

MasterChef Christmas specials and the show's production company, BannerJUK, have launched an investigation. Greg Wallace's lawyers have said it's, quote, entirely false that he engaged in behaviour of sexual harassing nature. And in videos Wallace released on his personal Instagram, he said, quote, I've been doing MasterChef for 20 years and I think in that time I've worked with over 4,000 contestants of all different ages, all different backgrounds, all walks of life. And apparently now, I'm reading in the paper, there's been 13 complaints in that time. Now, in the newspaper, I can see the complaints are coming from a handful of middle class women of a certain age just from Celebrity MasterChef. This isn't right.

He has since apologised for that comment and says he will be taking time out while the investigation is underway this is obviously the biggest story from the past week it's touched a lot of nerves his commentary and the fact that he he claimed that middle-class women of a certain age are the problem we just wanted to dive into what exactly about the story has upset so many of us i think what's been so interesting about this particular situation is there's so many layers to it. There's the actual accusations coming forward from a man which to some people could have been sort of like a national treasure. I'm going to hold my hands up I always thought he was a bit of a weirdo but there's also his response and the absolute brazenness of his reaction to it. The layers of misogyny within his responses to misogyny and sexual

harassment I think just made so many people feel like I can't believe this is 2024 I can't believe this is post me too I can't believe this is what we're living through and Molly Goodfellow did such a good tweet that was like I do think part of the Greg problem is that him denying the harassment is of a sexual nature is probably true in his mind because I do think men separate banter from actual intent which makes it so hard to dismantle because they don't don't think they're doing anything wrong like how do you argue with it's just a joke how do you unpick that within such a big part of society who agree it's just banter and I think that's fundamentally it it's someone like Greg Wallace coming forward and diminishing the very real fear and systemic issues that come

from men treating women like this and brushing it off as a joke, which I think leaves a lot of women feeling very distressed because it's like, okay, great, we're back here again. It does feel like a story that is so pre-Me Too, that it's like astounding to hear that people are behaving like this again. And just like these jokes happen in a workplace and they've gone on for tens of years it's just it's wild to think that an environment like this has been left to fester and investigation has just come out now with all of these stories I also think there's something really grim about seeing in plain sight the filtered way TV can make somebody out to be just quite a nice bumbling guy and then the reality can be so different and you feel like you can see this person every day on your TV for years and you have some concept of who they are and the reality is you have no idea who

they are the way that you know clips are edited producers can make anybody look like anything anybody can be anything on tv and be so different behind the screen have either of you read the rachel johnson piece e.g boris johnson's sister that she wrote for the standard about this because i think it kind of it encapsulates everything that i hate about this well it's just who he is it's just a bit of joke it's only words and it's an awful piece and i it made me about this well it's just who he is it's just a bit of joke it's only words and it's an awful piece and I it made me incredibly angry but it's also I think it speaks to people the whole defense of him is based in well it's not real harm and obviously this is in the case of the allegations of sexual innuendos sexual jokes word-based harassment which is obviously

unacceptable but that's all she speaks to. And in it, she writes, I feel sorry for Greg and presume that the outcome of his investigation will conclude with a mutual decision to part ways and an announcement that he will work on himself, which is probably the right decision in the short term, but in the long term, a disaster for free speech. I don't want to live in a country where hurty words and not real crimes can break careers as easily as eggs. and I read that and I sat with it and I just thought if you think if that's your takeaway from this that he's used hurty words and people have been offended you haven't read it you haven't sat with it you haven't

considered it you haven't listened to any of these women I just found it really offensive and goes right to the heart of why people will defend these kind of actions because they do consider them hurty words versus creating a workplace that is severely uncomfortable where women feel like harassed at work where women are worried that things will get worse and we know that these things do happen they've likely happened to us or people we know and reading this piece by a woman and in it she says she really doesn't like him but just believes so strongly in the you know freedom of speech that this is you know has to ultimately be i guess allowed it's just horrible making it a free speech thing is so outrageous

i can feel my blood boiling as you were reading that out that is insane to me this is not a free fucking speech issue this is a sexual harassment issue like how have you spun this to be about oh you know we have to protect the ability to be able to you know be authentic people at work what like should racists be authentic at work should sexual harassers be authentic at work what are you talking about I think so if people like Rachel Johnson want to engage in this type of language and banter with their male friends or female friends that is absolutely your prerogatory the issue comes in is that so many of these women had actually reported greg to no effect or to someone being told don't worry

nothing's going to happen there's a difference between whatever everyone can have their own boundaries about what they find funny within their friendship groups but when it's in a workplace that's different and when you feel threatened or when you are a person of less power a person of less privilege being subjected to quite creepy behavior you're absolutely well within your rights to feel fearful to feel unsafe and that's what I hate because it's such a flattening of the issue it's like sure I'm sure there's certain things that you know in a certain certain stance it might be funny but it's like it's the context is everything and one of the things that stood out to me and everyone else was the way he was like it was only how many was it 13 complaints

over 20 years and people were like okay well just so you know you're not meant to have any sexual misconduct complaints I hope that helps and it's this idea that like that's not so bad is it over the course of career it's like how low is the bar for men that they think they're doing well that they've only had you know know, a fraction of complaints? Going back to last week's episode on Dr. Ali Luke's and the outrage that was spurned from her just sharing her PhD. And it's like women can't do good for doing good. And a man who has had 13 complaints, which is like a hefty number, is like, oh, that's not that bad. what is really quite uncomfortable is just how often a scandal of this nature keeps cropping up in the BBC media world and I previously worked there so I felt the awkwardness of when these

scandals would come up because yeah people would be talking about them at work of course like it is just a weird environment to be in when you see the place you're working in constantly coming up in the news for things that have nothing to do with you it's a very strange thing and obviously there's a lot of tinfoil conspiracy theories that go around about the BBC and I don't really subscribe to any of them just because I think they can be quite wild I'm not going to really name them that they're just like classic things of the way these figures can operate in that environment very easily but it is just very strange and I think I've I've thought about this before I think it's just because the BBC is one of the biggest media corporations I mean it is the biggest media corporation in the UK and what that means is

the people who become the biggest figures within that corporation the biggest kind of presenters the ones who are you know the flagship characters they have an insane amount of power but it is interesting how so many complaints can occur with one singular person and nothing is done you can see why the conspiracy theories go wild around this media corporation there's just so many examples of this and in the past few years that have come out it's it's yeah it's mind-boggling what one of the things I think was also interesting is we talk so much about how standards have changed I do think that is true in terms of over the course of 20 years what someone would view as sexual harassment maybe 20 years ago wouldn't be picked up as much as we understand now because we realize so much more

about the intersection of privilege and we talk about it so much more but something that everyone was pointing out more was the fact that Greg was at pains to say that these were middle-class women of a certain age and everyone was saying yes because young freelance juniors do not have the same level of agency when it comes to coming forward when working for a massive opportunity like the BBC so it does take women to come into that power of middle age of of experience, of maybe, yeah, being a bit higher up the ladder to be able to say things. And I think people love using that argument about how much things have changed. I wonder if it's, I think maybe perhaps these standards have always been there. Women have always felt that this is inappropriate. It's just,

it's taken this long for people to have the courage and the capability to actually call it out. Because as you said, like someone like Greg Wallaceace who's been in the bbc for so long has a lot of power there's every likelihood that if you are a young woman you might just be gotten rid of rather than listened to see i think it's so interesting and it is i saw someone on twitter say um there's a reason middle class women of a certain age complain about inappropriate men greg because we're not afraid of men of a certain age anymore and i was thinking about that as i was reading kirsty allsops tweets about it and she was and she and i don't align on many things but i i you know i share her stance on trans rights or quite a lot of it i think you know she's gotten a lot of shit for that she's gone up against what

did you call her and only she must not be named herself jk rowling and she's had to defend herself in these various twitter wars several times and it's happening again with this she's getting so much shit for this shit for not speaking up for for taking a job when other people said oh we you know you should turn it down on principle you should have spoken up the time you know you're you're essentially a liar this that and the other and she's getting it from all angles and the replies i think are a lesson in why women do not speak up because this is a woman of privilege she's a woman who is very far in her career a woman who you would assume has quite a lot of money and it is I think it's it's obvious with anyone you know with sense and eyes to see but apparently not many people on the internet so we actually had a message from Polly who said

the whole saga really reveals what we've known all along about patterns of behavior. So often the little things that go unreported like a creepy comment or an inappropriate lingering touch are just the beginning. People will go on to already have done worse and we as women think things like that aren't serious enough to report but But when you put it all together, it paints a full picture of somebody as a predator. We inappropriate we have to protect freedom of speech in the workplace it's it's not that the amount of women who've come forward to say that they felt intimidated they felt uncomfortable the the number of allegations the sheer amount of it this is not a small thing it's wild it's a pattern of behavior it's a mass kind of pandora's box that's come open we also had had a message from Sarah who said,

everyone is acting like innuendos and likely scripted or prepared jokes said on TV is the same thing as a powerful man who has the face of a TV show making sexual comments to young women trying to build a career in TV. Infuriating. There is no nuance.

And it is exactly that. But there was an amazing piece in the New Statesman by Sarah Minervis called The Unfiltered World of Greg Wallace's Instagram. Did either of you follow him on Instagram? No, never. No, I didn't. No, I didn't. Until reading this piece, I didn't realise that he was quite so unhinged on social media. But she basically says that his Instagram has always been this weird place where this cocktail of fame and familiarity enables Wallace to see himself as both just a regular guy and as he described himself a bald king and she said we are witnessing the logical conclusion of

the boundaryless unfiltered version of greg wallace that has always been there posting in plain sight and what's interesting is having not followed him i have to say i've always got weird vibes i wasn't that shocked but i do think it's this level of scrutiny that men do not get put under from the stuff that they're putting out online it was actually interesting to me that I didn't know we'll link the piece in the show notes but just how kind of wild Greg Wallace's posting was because if any famous woman was posting anything remotely unhinged online it would be Daily Mail articles it would be everywhere we would know and so it is that kind of hiding in plain sight thing it's the fact that people have come forward there's kind of this uneasy feeling intra-industry in fact like just speaking to some friends recently like oh I've heard so many stories

of even you know colleagues on the show being like oh he's a bit of a dick whatever it's like the way that men are able to just lurk until they hit this sort of like crucial breaking point is something that needs to be studied or no more importantly eradicated one thing she also points out is that wild telegraph day in the life piece and i've seen a lot of people reference that since because i think for many people that piece which came out in february of this year was the first indication that this beloved kind of public character was maybe a bit off key, potentially even just like a shitty guy. He talks about having a son who is

nonverbal and has autism. And he spoke about how it would not have been his choice to have a son like that or spend time with him. And I think that really understandably hit a lot of people in the wrong way. it was a very bizarre very kind of honestly awful thing to say and I've just seen as well in the telegraph Robert Mendick has reported this week that Greg Wallace is expected to tell an inquiry that autism is to blame for his inappropriate actions I mean that's just a news story we don't we don't know what's coming but the fact that that is on the cards is really really quite dark I think that was I think for me one of the oddest things and again I think when I read it

it was just a reported friend saying it but if that is what they go with if they go with an autism defense if they say you know that his what was it that he doesn't understand social cues and other things like that I just think that's so problematic on so many levels because it's across a span of i think it's either 13 or 17 years we said at the top we can double check it's a very long time to one have none of it corrected if it was indeed the case you didn't understand something as a difference you haven't interpreted you were completely oblivious somehow that this was inappropriate to do and that no one upon observing it in your industry had pointed out and made you aware because at that point you can learn your lesson and you don't do it anymore. It's not a lack of culpability to have a limited awareness.

It just means that you would need to be taught. I just think it's very, just seems like a cruel thing, especially for his son, who, yeah, that piece, that Q&A, the day in life, was memed heavily online. And it was quite funny the memes but it did just make me feel very sad that you know this adult man sitting in his office playing war saga whatever it is for two hours a day while his you know resenting time this son that's how it came across I just think it's a real mess and already plenty of autistic people you know hashtag actually autistic people online are really just in complete disbelief that it's almost been hijacked for you know a lack of culpability a scapegoat it's just like it wouldn't surprise me because I just think we're in like the

most bonkers news cycle here and I don't actually think the floor exists I think they could go lower and lower but I just I would be really shocked. This is reminding me of, do you remember Jux O'Neill that was on Love Island in 2022? No. Who had been kind of, everyone was saying that he was quite abusive towards women or quite controlling. And their pushback was, oh, actually he has ADHD. And there was all of these sort of articles. I don't even know if they ended up being like maybe like a show about it. And basically everyone came forward and said look

his his inappropriate behavior or his behavior that he was being slammed for by viewers was because he had ADHD again understandably the neurodivergent community came forward and said I don't think that ADHD or in this case autism is a an excuse for shitty behavior nor a cause of it it might cause some sort of miscommunication or misunderstandings what it is it's just it's just another way unfortunately for men to evade culpability or responsibility for actions and I think that everything that's coming out and as one of the earlier messages said it is just worrying as women it's that thing of it it does feel like it's the tip of the iceberg I mean there's been so many instances when a man who is done for murder again I'm not making direct correlation with Greg but just in the a man who ends up being prosecuted and charged for murder of a woman they'll be like oh

three years ago actually he flashed someone on the tube like this is not it's kind of like these behaviors do have to be caught early on and spoken about I'm not obviously saying that Greg's going to go on to do anything untoward but it's like these behaviors as small as people might want to make them out in the media they do mean something and even if they don't mean something as deep as that in this instance it's all almost always a precursor for much worse behavior later down the line which i think is what we have seen here with the allegations. They do range, not in acceptability, but just in, I think, severity in terms of it does go from something that is bawdy, unacceptable jokes to the allegations of inappropriate touching.

And one of our listeners did send in a link to the interview with, I believe her name's Shannon Kyle, the ghostwriter who spoke exclusively with Newsnight. I think it's about a 40-minute interview, and I watched some of it. And it is really, it's actually a very difficult watch. I think she, it's an incredibly brave thing to do. You know, she said ahead of the interview that deciding to sit down and talk about it

years after the fact was one of the toughest decisions of her life. And I think knowing that, and knowing that she's done it, knowing that she is already receiving horrible abuse, knowing that this news cycle is rumbling on and gaining traction, I feel like she is already receiving horrible abuse, knowing that this news cycle is rumbling on and gaining traction. I feel like she is incredibly courageous

because she, I think, is also a middle-aged woman. She might actually be only in her early 40s, but she's primed to get so much backlash. And she's doing this. She's saying, this is what happened out of a concern for other women, out of a sense of, it's time to tell the truth. And I just think it's amazing. And I would suggest, if sense of it's time to tell the truth and I just think

it's I think it's amazing and I would suggest if you can stomach it to watch the interview there's some bits we've read a little bit at the top that are graphics are really just vile allegations but I do think it is important to listen to the women who are coming forward and saying these things one thing that I think is quite an interesting point about this is Rod Stewart's post Katrina messaged us and said, Rod Stewart's post was unhelpful with the language used, but appreciate him trying. So Rod Stewart posted in the wake of the allegations and wrote, So Greg Wallace gets fired from MasterChef. Good riddance, Wallace.

You humiliated my wife when she was on the celebrity version of the show, but you had that bit cut out, didn't you? You're a tubby, bald-headed, ill-mannered bully. Karma got you. Sir Rod Stewart. Oh my God. What did you guys think? It's so savage.

I mean, I think you have to feel quite grateful for Rod, whether or not he's sticking up for his wife and whether it is absolutely the kind of nuanced take on this that we needed. I think it was, it was lovely to see because usually it's not, and usually it's all women having to stick up themselves, always women who have to kind of take the brunt of this. And it just felt like quite a nice middle finger to, you know, a man who I very strongly dislike or dislike before this and now feel, you know, very, very special. Yeah, I don't know if I agree

that was unhelpful to the cause. I'd be interested to know, or interested to hear what you both think of that. I guess they just meant because it was quite, you know, body shaming and image shaming. But I think what's so interesting is how many celebrities actually have come forward, British celebrities,

just kind of immediately believing this. Not that they shouldn't believe it, but I haven't seen a second of reticence people are like I can completely believe this I met like it's clearly uh we've got a real problem here with unsaid what's the word with like kept secrets where and often this isn't the people's fault because it's women protecting themselves we've seen it with Harvey Weinstein we've seen it with Russell Brand we've seen it with man after man Johnny De've seen it with Russell Brand. We've seen it with man after man, Johnny Depp. Sometimes it feels like, what is the point in coming forward?

My whole reputation is going to be tarnished. My career is going to be ruined. And it really takes this avalanche of enough stories to hit this breaking point, to come through the threshold. So then there's safety in numbers and people are allowed to talk. But I've never seen an immediacy

like we saw with this story breaking of people just going yeah absolutely he's a piece of shit and Alana one of our listeners wrote in and said I'm glad he didn't hide behind his PR team so people can see what he's actually like and that gave me a bit of pause for thought because my immediate reaction is always to go why didn't he do this why didn't he do that and then I think actually maybe she's right he kind of put the nail in his own coffin there because the middle-aged women of a certain age thing has taken off to the point where Anita Rani wore a T-shirt saying middle-aged women of a certain age to an event. It's that kind of slogan, funnily enough,

that has been the thing that has just given everyone so much ammunition. And so I think Alana's right. Sometimes maybe we're too quick to say they've, you know, fluffed their PR. Maybe this is what we need because it's much easier that way it's not edited it's not filtered it's just him being him his true misogynistic self it's it's just I think it's arrogance isn't it that a man with that much money that that much kind of PR firepower just logged onto his Instagram to do a video it's just arrogant you if you I I like a lot of the listeners said,

like I'm very glad that he did that. I'm very glad that he showed his two colours. I'm very glad that people now can't argue because he didn't hide behind PR. I'm just astounded that he wouldn't immediately throw money at the situation. And to me, it's not like a human response to me. It's just a really arrogant thing to do.

Something really interesting. Lane said, i'm so tired of men tarnishing the shows i love and memories of them by their bad behavior and we got a similar message from alice who said would love to talk about masterchef cancelling shows how do we feel about this i feel like this is a mistake but one-to-one pick whether this is me being a whiny baby upset about my festive tv schedule or that it is really unfair to everyone involved in a tv show to go down with a ship when someone is accused i know it's just celebrity masterchef but people go on for their careers so it seems a shame that it won't be seen by the I don't know that I've got the answer either, but I just didn't think about this at all, maybe to my shame.

I just didn't think about this being not just his show, this being so many other people's. And it is just obviously lesser victims if the allegations prove true etc etc but all of these people are also victims if he has done this and if he has essentially tanked all of their hard work but I just hadn't considered that angle but I do think it maybe is important to think about this is a thorny thing to say but I wonder if part of the reason that these allegations don't come to light for such a long time is because these allegations won't just impact Greg, but they will impact the producers and the runners and the creators of the show. I think often it's a logistics thing where, and I'm not saying this is right, that these allegations should be taken seriously immediately. There should be consequences straight away.

But I think this is why it happens so often. Again, I'm just hypothesizing is when someone comes to you with an allegation, if people well we can probably get her to go away we can probably like make her feel better that means we don't have to reschedule a whole tv show recast a show reshoot do all these things I definitely think that that whole tapestry is probably what makes these things take so long to come to light but I do think it's a shame and I even felt it about when all the stuff came out about Russell Brand allegedly and Noel Fielding then allegedly it's like you can't then watch things and I even felt it about when all the stuff came out about Russell Brand allegedly and Noel Fielding then allegedly it's like you can't then watch things and I used to love Noel Fielding and he was on Bake Off and so I think it's this thing it's like what starts first it's like the chicken

or the egg how do you get the BBC to stop hiring people who are going to be doing these things should we fire them at a certain point it's like there needs to be a means of because they're really showing their ass the BBC to be honest we have to cancel to be cancelling like so many things because you keep having people who do inappropriate things on your shows it's they're really showing their ass the BBC to be honest we have to cancel to be cancelling like so many things because you keep having people who do inappropriate things on your shows it's they're the ones that look really stupid and it is a shame that other people are impacted but I guess how quick could you turn it around you'd have to refilm yeah I don't really have an answer yeah surely there's I don't think there is another option but it is just I can see why people are feeling like my festive tv schedule okay that's

wrong thing to think but also like they are important things they're important things for the chefs they're important things for the production they're important things for I imagine his co-host who John Turow who has spoken about this which I can't even get into but yeah it's maybe just another angle of just the mess you make when these things happen it's so far reaching it's just it's like a bomb goes off also the dichotomy of the fact that it was a bbc investigation that unearthed all of this and he is a bbc presenter it is just like a massive corporation and you would imagine that everything within it is really seamless but the reality is there are so many different desks there

are so many different aspects to it it almost feels like operating in a country and you're like different cities within that country is how i describe it but it like operating in a country and you're like different cities within that country is how i describe it but it is it is a bizarre one the fact that allegations could come through about a bbz presenter within the bbc but then an investigation years later within the same corporation unearths the fact that there are multiple allegations within that corporation against said presenter very strange another listener said that people keep being protected we need a whistleblowing platform where these rats can be outed in my opinion and i agree i do think there needs to be some kind of system that's way more seamless

than what you just said richard where actually if there is an allegation of sexual misconduct it goes into one pot not specific to that show not in a private conversation with someone who's friends with the perpetrator there needs to be a better way of these things coming to light and and reaching you know some kind of consequences for the perpetrator without it being years and years down the line and without it taking like we said this velocity of information complaints time in order to actually have some answers because it's actually it is embarrassing how many times we've seen this coming out of the UK with presenters now. And it's always historic

and it's always multiple allegations. Like really, it should be one allegation, hearing, whatever happens, outcome, result. I think that's sort of what we were talking about very tenuously in last week's main episode when we were talking about like the digital comeuppance that we wished on internet trolls. And it just doesn't exist but we want it to exist I think that's exactly what I want here I want swift justice I want you know it to

just be like a public call out of every bad man of every level but I think it's you know that's the plot of um the excellent book the list by um Yomi Adegoke it's so hard to enact that kind of swift justice without one getting sued into oblivion to the potential of accidentally um ruining someone's life all of that and it just it really frustrates me because there has to be a middle ground somewhere between historic allegations this has been happening for you know some cases 20 30 40 50 years versus just having a whisper network or just you know calling people out online and not having the the full context there there just has to be you know this has been going on we've been looking at these cases for such a long time we've been seeing the

dispatchers episodes all of that surely we have something better figured out it just feels like like a rat's nest that every so often you poke it and something else comes out something else goes scurrying it is just it's just not safe to have any male favorites anymore I feel like I've whittled mine down to three and you just can't get comfortable just no it's just I don't know what it is about actually we probably do know what it is about showbiz that does attract these types but it's just too depressing to think about thank you so much for listening and for all of your opinions and takes on this topic we love being conversation with you all and remember to follow us on instagram and tiktok at everything is content pod we'll see you as always on Friday. Bye!