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‘Being married to Gregg was utter hell’: A horrifying insight into the MasterChef star’s repulsive behaviour, infidelity and visits to sex workers as revealed by his second wife Denise

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As I delve deeper into this intriguing narrative, my heart goes out to Gregg Wallace – not for his professional downfall, but for the man he appears to have lost along the way. His life seems to be a tale of unquenchable thirst for fame and fortune, with relationships taking a backseat.

In the year 1991, Denise Lovell encountered Gregg the Veg for the first time. At that time, she was employed as a chef at The Sanctuary, a high-end health club nestled within the vibrant Covent Garden district of London.

In those days, I, a devoted admirer, found myself utterly captivated by Denise. This Denise, you see, was making waves across the culinary landscape, having once graced royal tables with her exquisite creations for the Queen and the late Princess Diana themselves.

On the other hand, it was Gregg Wallace, the charismatic and somewhat mischievous grocer of vegetables, who, upon completing his deliveries, would often perch on her kitchen counter and request a breakfast sandwich with bacon.

During their initial outing at Stringfellows nightclub, he wasn’t shy about expressing his vision for where their relationship might lead.

As Denise shared with me, she mentioned that he had confessed that very night, expressing how I embodied his ideal woman and his desire to make me his wife.

At that point, Denise was already betrothed to another individual, yet she admitted that she couldn’t withstand Wallace’s allure. She described him as highly sensual.

Enthralled by his charm, she quickly began living with Wallace – in a shabby apartment located on the Old Kent Road, South London – oblivious to the fact that his brief marriage to a woman named Christine Harrison in 1988 had endured for just six weeks.

Looking back on it, she admitted she had been deeply infatuated with him during their troubled 13-year romance.

In 2017, Denise shared her personal story with The Mail, but it remained unpublished – that is, until today.

In light of several women speaking out about inappropriate conduct, including groping and sexual harassment, by the four-time married co-host of MasterChef, this situation offers a strikingly clear glimpse into what it may have been like to be involved intimately with the now disgraced television figure.

In the year 2012, I had a conversation with Denise, who happened to be his second spouse, as his third marriage to Heidi (the one they met on Twitter) was disintegrating at that time.

Based on Denise’s observation, Heidi’s marriage to Gregg could have been a challenging and isolating experience, as her personal experience suggests.

In our conversation, Denise vividly described a man who was overly fixated on sexual encounters and detailed how his repeated infidelities and clandestine trips to escorts led to the downfall of their marriage.

At first, though, it was Gregg’s desire to make money that seemed his main driving force.

While she gave up work to care for their son Thomas, who was born in 1994, Wallace, who’d been a cab driver and window cleaner before working as a warehouseman at New Covent Garden market, devoted his energies to building up his wholesale greengrocery company, George Allan’s.

He set up the company in 1989 after borrowing £15,000 from friends. Soon, he was making enough money to move his young family to a three-bedroom home in East Sheen, Surrey. ‘He drove me there one day and told me he’d bought it,’ Denise recalled.

‘Gregg had full control over the finances. While I received a housekeeping allowance from him, he managed all the financial aspects.’

As Denise spent less time with Wallace, his green grocery business continued to thrive. In fact, at its height, the company’s yearly revenue reached a staggering £7.5 million.

In just a few short years following the birth of their daughter Libby in 1997, they relocated to a spacious, four-bedroom home that offered a breathtaking view of Richmond Park in Surrey.

‘At one stage I had five cars on the drive including a BMW convertible,’ said Denise.

I used to have designer garments, and a hairstylist who would come to my home. Gregg desired me to appear well-groomed, and he was always impeccably dressed. His shoe collection could give a run for its money against that of Imelda Marcos.

The children of the pair received their education at private institutions. They took vacations as a family to Turkey, Dubai, and Sri Lanka. Additionally, Wallace splurged on expensive Cartier jewelry for Denise, totaling thousands of dollars.

In 1999, they got married, with Denise donning an Amanda Wakeley silk wedding dress worth £3,000 for the civil ceremony at the register office and a grand reception at The Dorchester Hotel on Park Lane. Their honeymoon took them to Hong Kong and China.

At first glance, it appeared that the Wallace family were living a perfect life. However, as Denise pointed out, Wallace’s extramarital affairs and workaholic tendencies were causing significant damage to their marriage.

I’d often find myself saying, ‘He seemed to be gone for every hour,’ and here’s the kicker – he was usually in a sour mood. Rarely did I get to catch a glimpse of him.

Undeniably, one of the most heart-wrenching instances in their marriage for Denise, an incident that could still bring tears to her eyes, was when Wallace came home at 4 am one morning. When she confronted him about seeing someone else, he revealed, ‘Sweetheart, I just visited a sex worker.’

She explained to me that, due to the kids, she endured the situation. With no other options available, she felt utterly desperate. Despite having worked diligently for many years, she owned nothing of her own at that point. She primarily concentrated on being a mom instead.

In his 2012 autobiography, Life On A Plate, Wallace acknowledges that as long as he was home when the children woke up in the morning, he could manage with other women. He explains that this was a rule: she had her life, he had his, and they would spend holidays together.

For quite some time, Denise consistently aided Wallace, preparing his preferred dishes like shepherd’s pie and roast dinners, and assisting him in writing his debut cookbook, “Veg: The Greengrocer’s Cookbook.” He gratefully dedicated it to her and their children.

2004 marked the turning point for Denise, as she uncovered Wallace’s infidelity involving one of his work colleagues.

For a while, she’d harbored doubts about the relationship, eventually uncovering the fact that Wallace and his companion had taken a vacation to Turkey as a couple.

In our conversation, Denise shared with me that she decided to part ways with Gregg, explaining, “I felt it was necessary for my well-being. All he left behind were the stacks of old, disorganized magazines hidden away in the garage.

Instead of leaving his designer clothes and footwear from brands like Gucci and Dolce & Gabbana, he decided not to take them with him. Consequently, I ended up donating those items to a nearby charitable store.

2004 marked the year when their divorce unfolded, a turn of events that came after a temporary downfall in Wallace’s vast empire of businesses. As I, an ardent fan, recall, while his stardom in the media was on the rise – starting with his captivating role as co-host on BBC Radio 4’s Veg Talk phone-in show – his greengrocery enterprise faced hardships and ultimately succumbed to bankruptcy.

Originally, the house that served as their family residence was re-mortgaged in order to keep the business afloat. When it was later sold for a total of £850,000, Denise received only £70,000, whereas Wallace pocketed £30,000 from the sale.

‘That was the only money I ever got at the end of our marriage,’ she told me.

As a devoted admirer, I found myself in a bind: my little ones were thriving at that exclusive academy, yet the bills for their education remained unpaid. In an instant, our circumstances took a drastic turn. We bid farewell to our spacious abode and embraced a more compact dwelling. Overnight, our lives transformed, reshaping into an entirely new chapter.

After their separation, Denise experienced a total mental collapse over several months. During this period, the children from the relationship moved to stay with Wallace at his newly established residence in Whitstable, Kent.

She remembered feeling utterly disorganized. She didn’t know whom to confide in, felt isolated without anyone to share her thoughts with, and tragically, she also lost her children during this difficult time.

In contrast to Denise’s challenges of getting by financially in Surrey, Wallace swiftly restored his business empire and found himself in the limelight on TV as a co-host of MasterChef in 2005. This role brought him an annual income of £400,000.

However, with numerous women sharing experiences about his inappropriate behavior spanning almost two decades, it appears that Denise’s portrayal of a persistent ladies’ man has remained relevant. Among those who have spoken out are TV hosts like Kirsty Wark, Ulrika Jonsson, Kirstie Allsopp, and Melanie Sykes.

This week, joining the conversation, I – Shannon Kyle, age 47 – lent my voice, having collaborated with the esteemed figure, Wallace, aged 60, during the writing of his autobiography from May to August in 2012. Our work was published later that year.

This week, she shared with BBC Newsnight that the host opened the door to her while clad merely in a towel, which he subsequently discarded. The host then made deeply disturbing and nauseating sexually charged comments to her, and inappropriately touched her as well.

Additionally, she claimed that during their ride in his sporty automobile, Wallace had inappropriately touched her thigh while seated as a passenger, and later on, after attending the Good Food Show in Birmingham, he made contact with her backside.

She was speaking out, she said, to highlight what she described as Wallace’s ‘predatory’ behaviour.

Wallace sees things quite differently from what we’re discussing. In an interview promoting his book, he informed the Mail that he doesn’t actively search for these places. Instead, they seem to approach him – at events like shows or conferences, and often they are younger individuals.

In 2017, after Denise passed away due to alcohol-related issues, she shared with me that her first awareness of Wallace’s third marriage took place in January 2011. This revelation came when she saw pictures of him and his then-29-year-old spouse, biology teacher Heidi Brown, featured in Hello! Magazine.

Heidi connected with Wallace, a man seventeen years older than herself, following their interaction on Twitter when she inquired about the rumor that he had been referred to as an “unusual admirer” in a publication.

After he asked if they had ever been to London and suggested he’d treat them to lunch if they called him, it turned out that they attended the BAFTAs together in April 2009.

Heidi became Wallace’s PA, but the marriage lasted only 14 months. She later said Wallace was a ‘difficult man’ and ‘quite needy’. Now living in Dubai, she didn’t respond to media requests this week.

As a lifestyle aficionado, let me share an intriguing tale: I, too, have discovered the charm of social media in my personal life. Just like Wallace, I found my younger companion on Twitter, in the form of Anne-Marie Sterpini. She reached out to me, curious about a culinary conundrum she’d observed during one of my TV appearances – whether rhubarb truly complements duck as a dish.

He told Hello! Magazine: ‘I just looked at Anna’s photo and thought, ‘Wow, she’s pretty’.’

The couple, who remain united, tied the knot in 2016 and share a four-year-old son named Sid. Later on, Wallace confessed that he wasn’t keen on being a father again and felt unhappy about trading his young, vibrant, attractive girlfriend for an exhausted mom. However, he agreed under the stipulation that she would receive necessary help.

In the end, her parents moved into the couple’s £1m Kent home.

Wallace humorously commented: “Anna can’t part from me since [her] mother would need to depart too. This piece of information, for a nervous old man dating a younger woman, is reassuring.” However, it’s important to note that Wallace’s choice of words when discussing his romantic relationships may seem outdated, but this is overshadowed by the controversy surrounding the alleged remarks he made towards the women he has collaborated with over the past two decades.

As a lifestyle advisor, I’d rephrase that situation like this: In the midst of numerous reports about his off-camera conduct on set, he is rumored to have posed questions to a female team member regarding her preferences for dominant relationships or role-play scenarios involving BDSM, and furthermore, expressed feelings of potential affection towards her by saying, “I could fall in love with you.

Previous accounts have echoed stories about Wallace’s persistent brags concerning his intimate experiences, as well as his habit of strolling around without a shirt to display his body. A male crew member from the Big Weekends travel program even stated that the host boasted about his encounters with prostitutes in threesomes and expressed his fondness for spanking.

They firmly maintain that he does not exhibit any behavior that could be considered sexually harassing.

The investigation into the claims is being carried out by Banijay UK, the production company behind MasterChef. However, on Tuesday, the BBC decided to cancel two celebrity editions of MasterChef’s Christmas specials, one day after Wallace issued an apology for dismissing his accusers as ‘a handful of middle-aged women’. He later stated that he would be taking some time off.

Last night, the leaders of BBC, Tim Davie and Charlotte Moore, sent out an email to all staff members, assuring everyone that they stand behind them in addressing any concerns about inappropriate conduct in the workplace. They also encouraged anyone who witnesses anything questionable to voice their concerns.

The broadcaster informed employees they will investigate any claims made and won’t accept actions that don’t meet our set expectations.

According to his autobiography, Wallace received advice from TV producer Dixi Stewart, a colleague on his radio show Veg Talk, to tone down his ‘mischievous market vendor’ persona at the start of his media career.

He remembers her saying, “You’re only hurting yourself,” to which she followed with, “It’s time for the jesting to cease and the learning to begin.

In hindsight, if only I could’ve gotten Wallace to listen to my counsel, I believe things would have turned out differently. As I shared with you, Gregg was deeply engrossed in his work, a fact that I had pointed out numerous times. Unfortunately, no woman seemed capable of rivaling his insatiable hunger for recognition and wealth.

Ultimately, however, it’s his treatment of women that may have put an end to both.

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2024-12-07 04:53

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