Enjoying an after-work drink with my production team, I eventually found myself alone on a sofa with a certain, married, TV presenter.
I knew what was coming: ‘You’re so beautiful’ and ‘I’ve always imagined what it would be like to be in bed with you’.
I had stayed in the bar past midnight to ensure he (and everyone else) got home safely. I was still working so I wasn’t drunk, but he was.
I’m a fairly confident woman, but I knew the balance of this situation was tipped in his favour. Tell him where to shove it and the probability was that I’d lose my job (or certainly not be hired again). Would I even be believed? Unlikely. No doubt I’d be told it was ‘just a bit of fun’.
He only had to say something to the broadcasting company bosses who had commissioned the show and that would be it – my career would be toast.
As I shuffled backwards on the sofa to avoid his wandering hands, my mind did one of those rapid risk assessments women know only too well.
Samantha Brick says she was seen as prey in her early TV career
MasterChef, which features Gregg Wallace, Marcus Wareing and Monica Galetti, above, is worth a fortune to the BBC and the format, which belongs to the production company, Banijay, is franchised around the world
How to let him down gently without causing offence? How to extricate myself without him touching me? And if he did, who could I complain to? Broadcasting bosses who have paid six‑figure salaries to sexually charged, male dumbos, just like this one, don’t want to hear a word against them.
Given all that, is it any surprise it took so long for the allegations of sexually inappropriate comments and boorish behaviour by Gregg Wallace to come to light?
In my 20 years working in television – as a producer on shows such as Ibiza Uncovered and Dinner Dates, then as head of entertainment at Sky 1 – I came across plenty of gropey, smutty, handsy men with power on both sides of the camera.
A presenter friend was sharing a taxi with her boss when he tried to shove his tongue down her throat, groping between her thighs at the same time. When she pushed him off, he was fuming and told her she wouldn’t work for him ever again. He remained true to his word.
Another friend was touched up in a cupboard by a daytime presenter. A third was forced to perform a sexual act at a wrap party.
For the past 15 years or so I’ve lived in France, concentrating on my career as a writer. But I turn my hand now and again to TV (I was even a contestant on Celebrity Big Brother in 2012) and I keep in touch with friends in the TV world. All I ever hear are complaints.
Indeed, I don’t know any woman who works – or who has worked – in television who hasn’t been put in an awkward position by a male boss, been spoken to in a sexually inappropriate way, physically groped or had to fend off advances from a bloke in a position of power.
Wallace’s fatal error is that he was so arrogant he didn’t confine his lewdness to voiceless underlings, but happily made offensive comments in front of powerful women such as Kirsty Wark, Melanie Sykes and Kirstie Allsopp who have – albeit belatedly – struck back.
Wallace allegedly made offensive comments in front of powerful women such as Kirstie Allsopp, above, who has – albeit belatedly – struck back
Allsopp says Wallace discussed a sex act with his partner ‘within an hour’ of meeting her. Vanessa Feltz says he did the same to a friend of hers when they got into a lift at the BBC.
Their complaints were compounded yesterday by fresh allegations. A young woman, who worked on the BBC show Eat Well For Less in 2015, said Wallace touched her inappropriately while they were filming in a supermarket: ‘He brushed past me at the checkout and touched my bum with his waist and penis and laughed and said: ‘Oooh, you liked that, didn’t you?’ ‘
Another woman, who worked on MasterChef in 2015, said she was called to Wallace’s dressing room to fix his bow tie for an after-work event and, as she did so, noticed his trousers were ‘partially lowered’ and his pubic hair on show. ‘He stared at me,’ she said, in a way that felt like ‘a power play’.
She mentioned what had happened to colleagues, who offered to take the matter further, but she backed down: ‘I did not want to be seen to be making a fuss, especially early in my career.’
That even women like Wark & Co who were stars in their own right mostly didn’t see any point in complaining at the time the incidents occurred speaks volumes.
But, believe me, there will be many equally high-profile males closely watching the downfall of Gregg Wallace, hoping this doesn’t turn into a #MeToo moment for the British broadcasting industry.
For the truth is, if we women in the TV industry honestly spoke out about every inappropriate sexual come-on, tweak of a breast, hand on our bottom or sexual slur dished out by men old enough to know better and their shows were swiftly taken off air – as the upcoming Christmas editions of MasterChef have been – viewers might well be staring at a blank screen for the next few years.
Is it any wonder that some of the brilliant, talented women I know in the industry have had breakdowns, ended up on antidepressants, been unable to hold down a relationship or are now single parents?
Television is a world that might seem glamorous, but bully-boy bosses, long hours, uncertainty of employment and routine mistreatment by men (many of whom are on-screen faces the viewers trust) are mindbogglingly common.
I have no doubt the only remorse Wallace has about all of this is being caught. And the only sympathy he will have is for himself.
But while his alleged inappropriate sexual behaviour, smutty language, Carry-On-style antics and thuggish tactics belong in the past, so do the hiring-and-firing tactics still used in TV today.
Wallace posted a hasty apology online after a previous video response backfired
Most small production companies don’t have an HR department fit for purpose, preferring to use their budgets on expensive lawyers against anyone who complains. As a result, men in the media only seem to get sacked when they are publicly and repeatedly outed for sexist behaviour.
Remember, this is an industry where, for the vast majority of employees, there is no job for life. Short-term contracts mean you rarely know where your next job is coming from, meaning if you want to pay your bills, you put up and shut up.
It’s the boss (still usually male) who decides if you’re the right fit for his team. I’ve heard ‘Is she single?’ used as a routine interview question. Qualifications are secondary.
If you have a reputation for being ‘difficult’, a word open to interpretation, then you won’t get hired. And affairs are rife and covered up by the tacit agreement that ‘what happens on location stays on location’.
The main reason broadcasters turn a deaf ear to complaints is the show budgets. What comes first? The profit and loss sheet or the wellbeing of their staff? I think we all know the answer to that question.
MasterChef is worth a fortune to the BBC and the format, which belongs to the production company, Banijay, is franchised around the world, with spin-off shows produced in 50-plus countries.
The BBC, ITV and Channel 4 don’t typically make programmes, cash-strapped independent production companies do. This is partly why complaints take so long to surface. If someone on the team does complain, it will probably be to the production company. If that company keeps passing bad news to the powerful broadcasting companies that commission them, they may risk losing their contract.
This means the directors and presenters of long-running series are particularly prone to bad behaviour: they know they can get away with pretty much anything.
I should say here that not all male faces on screen are bad ‘uns. You’ll struggle to find anyone with a bad word to say about the former Pointless presenter Richard Osman, for example. We worked together in our late 20s. He is a funny, kind, generous, not to mention talented, colleague.
And I can think of numerous male producers I’d feel completely comfortable with working late into the night. Indeed, many of them are horrified by what goes on. The thing is, very few stick up for their female colleagues.
Many men in front of the camera rule by fear. Think Jeremy Clarkson, who once punched a producer. Think Gordon Ramsay and his constant swearing. Imagine being a ‘civilian’ working on their shows.
In what other industry would you know that your boss (Richard Madeley) goes commando under his suits?
This was something most female researchers were privy to on This Morning, before he revealed it to viewers, too.
In what other profession would it be perfectly acceptable to cover for another presenter’s notorious lunchtime drinking sessions?
When Russell Brand fronted a series for me, he would routinely borrow money from the crew and not pay it back, or turn up late – usually after a row with a girlfriend; unprofessional behaviour that would get anyone else booted off a production.
Of course, he has also since been accused of sexual misconduct, which he vehemently denies, calling the allegations made against him ‘appalling’ and ‘very, very hurtful’.
Famous men are routinely wined and dined by TV big cheeses. They travel everywhere by company car. Their clothes are bought (and ironed) for them. So much is done for them that they really do believe they’re A Big Deal.
They’re told over and over how invaluable they are – and they believe it. And then they act the way Wallace does. Or Phillip Schofield. Or Huw Edwards . . . or many more I could name.
I have tried to stand up for the sisterhood. I’ve been asked to testify in sexual harassment cases and was only too happy to assist the women involved. In both cases, the men were middle-aged and had taken advantage of women young enough to be their daughters.
But while working as a creative executive at one prominent production company, I got a very sobering glimpse into the power imbalance.
When several young women complained to me about the behaviour of one of the male executives, I forced my bosses to conduct a sexual harassment investigation.
Even though the individual concerned had the incident included on his employment record, who was it who got moved sideways out of the company? Yours truly, of course.
Many of the women I once worked with don’t work in television any more. By and large, if they haven’t become a life coach or branched into something they are passionate about then their confidence is so shattered that they’ve given up.
Yet, rather curiously, since the Wallace story broke last week, I have noticed a tentative turning of the tide.
On social media, men in the industry have begun asking women to speak up about their experiences, offering to back and support them. It’s the first time I’ve seen this acknowledgment.
Is it hot air? I hope not.
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