Friends of Gregg Wallace claim autism caused ‘inability to wear underwear’
The presenter was sacked from MasterChef this week.
Gregg Wallace’s friends have claimed that the former MasterChef star’s autism diagnosis is partly to blame for his inappropriate behaviour.
The 60-year-old former greengrocer was this week sacked from the BBC cooking show amid an investigation into allegations of inappropriate conduct during his time as a presenter.
It was this week revealed that 50 more people had approached the broadcaster with claims about the TV presenter.
Wallace faced accusations of making ‘inappropriate sexual jokes’ and lewd comments on set, asking for the phone numbers of female members of production staff, as well as undressing in front of and standing ‘too close’ to women working on his shows.
The longtime presenter strongly denies any serious misconduct, including accusations of groping.
He has admitted that his behaviour may have been misinterpreted and attributes much of it to social misunderstandings stemming from his autism, which he was only formally diagnosed with recently.
He has been officially fired by the BBC (Picture: BBC/Shine TV) Wallace’s sacking comes before publication of report on claims about his behaviour (Picture: BBC/Voltage TV)Friends close to Wallace have now doubled down on those claims, adding that his ‘autistic hypersensitivity’ meant that he had a ‘oddity of filters and boundaries’.
In claims made to The Times, those close to the TV presenter have referred to his ‘inability to wear underwear because of his autistic hypersensitivity to labels and tight clothing’.
The report is set to be published in the coming days. Those same sources have claimed the complaints mostly relate to inappropriate language and are dated before 2018, at which point he changed his behaviour.
‘He stopped going out with the team and stopped telling jokes because he realised he didn’t know what was right and what crossed the line,’ a friend told the publication.
A spokesperson for the National Autistic Society told Metro: ‘Every autistic person is different, just like every non-autistic person is different, so it is important not to generalise or make judgements based on the actions, words or behaviour of any one individual.’
