‘Telling-off from BBC’ for chef Torode
MASTERCHEF’S GREGG Wallace has said his co-host John Torode got a telling off from the BBC after saying the pair had “never been friends”.
Torode made the comment in a recent interview, saying he had never even been to Wallace’s home. Wallace, 52, said: “John and I had a laugh about it and started putting pictures of ourselves on Twitter.
“But he got told off a bit by the BBC and by the commissioner and the executive saying he should have handled it a bit more carefully.”
Wallace said it was not accurate that the stars, who have been judges on together for 12 years, are not friends.
He said: “I think what he was trying to say was that we’re not friends in the typical sense.
“But it came out that we’re not friends, and that simply isn’t true.”
The pair reportedly met during Torode’s early career working at central London restaurant Quaglino’s, which served vegetables supplied by Wallace.
They later began presenting and judging the popular BBC cooking series when it was revamped in 2005.
Wallace said: “John was best man at my wedding and I’m not really closer to anybody else. Where it’s an unusual relationship – and it most certainly is – is that because we’re so friendly on telly, people think it’s make believe or that we’re close outside of work. We don’t see each other away from work, but we’re close in work seven months of the year.
“We don’t meet up at weekends, or share the same interests and we’ve never been to each other’s houses. But nobody’s been to my house. My home is my haven and when I’m there I don’t like anything that drags me out of it.”
Wallace said that while the pair do not have a typical friendship, “it works for us”.