star exposed his “issue” with his co-host in a biting three-word statement.
Gregg, who has been hit with allegations of sexual misconduct from various contestants over the last week which he denies, claimed he and John had a close relationship – however, Torode once insisted they have “never been friends”.
In a resurfaced interview with The Sunday Times, John went one step further as he recalled an early-morning encounter with Gregg. In 2022, John admitted: “With Gregg, my issue is the 6am phone calls. Last time it happened I wasn’t very happy and I said, ‘Gregg, mate, it’s 6am’. And he said, ‘But you’re on my list!’
“That’s the thing with Gregg, he gets up very early and his whole life is diarised and run on lists. Anyway, the next time I saw him face to face I sensed that disturbance in the force – I knew there was something wrong.
“I said, ‘Mate, come on, what’s up?’ He said, ‘You weren’t very nice to me on the phone the other morning.’ I said, ‘It was 6am!’ and he said, ‘But I get up at 5am and you were on my list!’”
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John Torode exposed his ‘issue’ with Gregg Wallace (Image: Getty)
John confessed the pair managed to “talk it out”, and that working together as closely as they have, “you have to learn to accept each other’s foibles”.
In the same interview, Torode claimed he and Wallace “made absolute honesty the key to [MasterChef’s] success”, praising Gregg for being “incredibly organised”.
It’s a different story to the one John told in 2017, when he said: “It’s funny, we’ve never been friends. We’ve not been to each other’s houses. 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.”
John claimed in 2017 that the pair had never been friends (Image: Getty)
Gregg has denied all allegations, with his lawyers saying it is “entirely false that he engages in behaviour of a sexually harassing nature”.
John is now said to be worried about associating with Gregg, with a source telling the Daily Mail: “Gregg and John are not friends, their relationship has been purely professional for a long time but that is looking shaky right now.
“John is actually much more of a sensitive soul but the fact is that he was present in the studios while MasterChef was being filmed so you have to wonder what he saw, what did he know? John and Gregg filmed together when there has clearly been so much going on.”