Let’s discuss Gregg Wallace and his white-van-man alter ego. A man who has turned his once reliable MasterChef charm into a full-blown case study in professional implosion. Watching him navigate his downfall has been like observing a soufflé collapse in slow motion: utterly predictable, yet still oddly fascinating.
There are issues aplenty arising from the allegations levelled against him of inappropriate sexual banter: issues about power relationships, gender relationships, workplace culture, fame and the media. But from a PR standpoint Wallace has served up a textbook example of what not to do: a misjudged mess of ego, tone deafness and a remarkable failure to adapt to the world after #MeToo. And today, an apology hoping to nullify what he said about it all just yesterday. If this is going to plan, what plan was that?
Let’s be clear: Wallace’s alleged behaviour – sexualised jokes, swaggering about the studio in nothing but a sock, and generally cultivating an atmosphere so toxic you could bottle it – reads less like harmless banter and more like a relic of a bygone era when ITV primetime blithely commissioned the crass racial and cultural machinations found in sitcoms Love Thy Neighbour and Mind Your Language.
And therein lies the crux of........