MasterChef star John Torode on ‘love’ he has for Gregg Wallace

John Torode – who has just been sacked from MasterChef – previously opened up about his lack of friendship with co-host Gregg Wallace.
Speaking before the show and its two hosts became embroiled in scandal, 59-year-old John insisted that, away from the cameras, they never socialised together and weren’t pals.
Now, as dozens of complaints about Gregg – and one about John – are upheld by an independent inquiry, ED! takes a look back at a friendship that almost certainly appears to be forever fractured…

Gregg and John were not said to be close pals (Credit: CoverImages.com)

MasterChef star John Torode on his lack of friendship with Gregg Wallace
John and Gregg presented MasterChef together since 2005. However, they knew each other before then, as Gregg used to supply John’s restaurants with vegetables.
However, while John was best man at Gregg’s wedding to fourth wife Anna, John has previously said that they’ve never been friends away from the cameras.
In a 2017 interview with The Mirror, John 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.”
He added: “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.”
Later, in 2020, John gave an interview to Hello!, where he stated: “We are mates, but also mates fall out. We have to make sure our relationship is professional and that nothing infiltrates that at all.”