‘Torode was a soft target’: The week MasterChef hit boiling point

In the summer of 2016, the cover of Hello! magazine bore a “MasterChef wedding exclusive”. On the left was Gregg Wallace, grinning in a blue suit with a white rose in his buttonhole, holding the hand of his new bride, Anne-Marie. Next to her, Lisa Faulkner, the actress and former Celebrity MasterChef winner who had gone on to marry his co-star, John Torode. Next to Faulkner, with a matching flower in his buttonhole, was Wallace’s best man, Torode.

Wallace and Torode had been MasterChef’s odd couple ever since they became hosts in 2005. They had first met in the 1990s on the London restaurant scene, when Torode was working at Quaglino’s and Wallace was his veg supplier. By then, both were circling 50: Wallace was on his fourth marriage and Torode on his second. Slightly improbably, given where they had started, they had become two of the biggest names on British television. In the photograph, they look like a pair of old boys quietly revelling in having got very, very lucky in life.

Surprising, then, that a year later, in 2017, Torode told a newspaper that in fact he and Wallace weren’t close. “It’s funny, we’ve never been friends,” he told The Mirror. “We’ve not been to each other’s houses… He’s so OCD, he wouldn’t know what to do. He’d build it up in his mind for three days, and probably make himself quite sick, then he’d have an argument with his wife and not turn up. If I went to his house, he would feel like he wasn’t in control.”

Torode admitted they wouldn’t even spend time together if they were filming abroad. “If we go away to somewhere like South Africa, we do things separately. If we do go out for a drink, I’ll invariably be at one end of a big old table and he’ll be at the other.

“Once, we had a bit too much to drink and filming got called off. We ended up having a massive fight about one of the contestants, and he got really stubborn – it was ridiculous. We’ve had a couple of stand-offs over the years, about contestants, and I’ve just had to walk away from him.”

Best men or remote colleagues – it’s not clear which is the real story. Torode was sacked this week by Banijay, the production company that makes MasterChef, amid allegations he had made a racist remark. Until then, it had seemed that Wallace, who has had more than half of the 83 allegations levied against him upheld, was being cast as the wrong ‘un; Torode was the innocent bystander.

But while there is no suggestion that Torode has been accused of the same kind of allegations as Wallace, this latest chaotic chapter in the great unravelling of the BBC’s flagship show, has muddied the waters for the Australian presenter. 

Torode, 59, is now facing claims he used the n-word at an after-show drinks in 2018, with the alleged incident reportedly coming to light during Banijay’s own investigation into Wallace. The Sun also reported Torode had repeated lyrics from rapper Kanye West’s song Gold Digger, which contains a racial slur.

The BBC said Torode had used “an extremely offensive racist term”, adding: “We will not tolerate racist language of any kind.

The Telegraph understands that Torode was the subject of multiple allegations, although only one was substantiated. 

On Monday, the celebrity chef said he had “absolutely no recollection” of that alleged incident. “I do not believe that it happened. However, I want to be clear that I’ve always had the view that any racial language is wholly unacceptable in any environment. I am shocked and saddened by the allegation, as I would never wish to cause anyone any offence.”

The question remains, then, was Torode just another powerful man in the public eye whose bad behaviour went unchecked? Or is he, as some fear, collateral damage of a PR disaster?

While Torode does, it now appears, have his critics within the MasterChef camp, some believe he has been mistreated, telling The Telegraph they were “heartbroken” about the manner of his dismissal, as well as the doubts it has cast over the future of the show.

“People who have worked with him for a long time are feeling heartbroken about the way he has been treated,” says one insider. “They are very upset that he’s no longer on the show.”

One source close to the show was shocked by the allegations which they said “seemed very unlikely”. 

“He’s a very well-spoken man. Those aren’t words that sit on his lips.”

The source suggested Torode was collateral damage after the MasterChef fiasco, which saw Wallace accused of sexual misconduct, and left the BBC facing questions over its knowledge of his behaviour. “It seems to me that this is the BBC getting tough on a soft target,” the source said, adding the presenter may have been a victim of over-sensitivity within the corporation in the wake of other recent scandals, like the broadcasting of anti-Semitic chants at Glastonbury.

“Who would have thought that John Torode would be a casualty of Israel-Palestine, which is basically what’s happened.”

In December, The Telegraph revealed BBC bosses were alerted to complaints about Wallace on at least four different shows over the course of a decade. Monday’s report revealed that alongside the allegations made against Wallace over 19 years, there were also 10 made against other people, two of which were substantiated. 

On Tuesday afternoon, Torode released a statement confirming that one of the substantiated claims related to him. Wallace said this week he was “deeply sorry for any distress” he caused. He has previously defended himself, saying he has recently been diagnosed with autism, but TV bosses had failed to “investigate my disability”, or “protect me from what I now realise was a dangerous environment”.

Some say Torode is being tarred with the same brush as his co-star. “Up until this moment, I’ve never heard anything bad about John,” said one industry insider. While inappropriate behaviour by Wallace was claimed to be common knowledge, there has never, the source said, been chatter about Torode. “I think Gregg was one of those poorly-kept secrets, whereas John hasn’t been [associated with inappropriate behaviour].”

Torode must at the very least have been witness to some of what one source described as the “toxic” culture at MasterChef. The set might have had a “glamorous veneer”, the source said, but “the reality was very different”. “Everyone was too frightened to call out bad behaviour, even though everyone knew it was going on.”

Aasmah Mir, the BBC presenter and former Celebrity MasterChef contestant, said that when Wallace made an inappropriate remark to her during filming – telling her to tell a BBC colleague she was a “sexy b---h” – Torode failed to step in. “What I know is Gregg Wallace used an incredibly inappropriate term, and John Torode didn’t do anything,” she told ITV’s Good Morning Britain. “There was no emotion.”

“It was an uncomfortable experience. I remember feeling destabilised, my cheeks were burning. I remember thinking I don’t know what happened there. No one said anything. And both Gregg Wallace and John Torode just looked completely blank, like nothing had happened.”

One source close to the show told The Telegraph, Torode “could be quite sharp... He was very good at managing up, knowing how to behave in the company of important people.”

Another described him as “a typical Aussie – a bit of a sledger when it came to jokes, and he could be very blunt in the way he addressed people”.

“That’s the environment he grew up in,” the source said. “The idea that Gregg was the only one whose comments could offend people is not right.”

A fellow Australian who encountered Torode at an event organised by the Australian Embassy, put it even more bluntly, saying he was “a total flog” – Australian slang for a pretentious, conceited person.

Meanwhile, a source who worked with both Wallace and Torode, said that despite the way the pair have been portrayed, Torode was less popular than Wallace. “Gregg, for all his faults, was a warm character and many people on MasterChef felt generously towards him even if they could see that some of his comments were inappropriate. There was less love and generosity felt towards John, definitely.”

The Telegraph understands the pair have not spoken since Wallace was forced to step down in November. “They had a really good on-screen partnership, but it stopped there,” says one source. “They were never mates,” the source adds, casting new light on the Hello! photoshoot, which begins to look like more of a publicity stunt.

Nevertheless, a friend of Wallace insisted that he took no pleasure in Torode’s dismissal. “He has said to me he was really upset that John has gone. He didn’t want to see this happen to anybody else. There is no solace for him in John going.”

Some industry insiders feel the show will ride this latest wave. “It’s a colossus, and you have to remember Britain is just one territory where it’s shown. It’s inconceivable that it would be scrapped. It’s a very big deal, a key part of the schedule. I’d say it’s pretty indestructible.”

Others say the loss of Torode presents a crucial opportunity to breathe fresh air into a tired format, including, perhaps, with female presenters. “The BBC were too slow to realise the show badly needed a reboot,” says one source. “They needed to change it up five years ago. If they had, they wouldn’t be in this position.

“There has long been a question about whether Gregg and John were the right people to lead it anyway. Now, they’re in a position where they’re going to have to bring it back from the brink and completely rebrand it. They need two new people to draw a line under the Gregg and John situation. And they have to get that choice right, with hosts who have real food knowledge, or it’ll be over for the show.”

What happens next for Torode remains to be seen. ITV is standing by him and will continue to broadcast the Saturday morning show, John and Lisa’s Weekend Kitchen. In a statement on Instagram this week, Torode said he hadn’t heard from the BBC or Banijay. “I am seeing and reading that I have been sacked from MasterChef, and I repeat that I have no recollection of what I’m accused of.”

Signing off, he seemed to recast his MasterChef exit, saying it was simply “time to pass the cutlery to someone else... For whoever takes over, love it as I have.” Whatever happens next for the show, you would imagine both the BBC and Banijay will be searching for replacements who don’t bear any resemblance to MasterChef’s odd couple.