John Torode has revealed he no longer speaks to his former MasterChef co-presenter Gregg Wallace, saying their relationship was always largely professional and that when they were not filming, they simply were not in touch.
Torode's comments, in a recent interview about life after the programme, underline how completely one of British television's longest double acts has dissolved. The pair fronted MasterChef together for about two decades before both were removed following investigations into their conduct.
Wallace was dismissed in July 2025 after an independent review commissioned by production company Banijay upheld 45 of 83 allegations against him, spanning behaviour between 2005 and 2024. Most of the upheld allegations involved inappropriate sexual language, with one relating to unwanted touching. Wallace has said some of his humour was inappropriate while disputing much of the portrayal of him, and he later pursued — then discontinued — a data protection claim against the BBC.
Torode left shortly afterwards, after an allegation that he had used an extremely offensive racist term was upheld. He has consistently said he has no recollection of the incident and does not believe it happened, while also saying any racial language is wholly unacceptable. He described his own departure as stressful and a shock after so many years building the programme.
The clearout did not stop with the presenters. Monica Galetti, a judge on MasterChef: The Professionals since 2009, recently told an interviewer she was not really in contact with either man and did not want to discuss Wallace at all — a small remark that spoke volumes about the atmosphere the scandal left behind.
MasterChef continues with a new presenting team, and Torode has turned to a YouTube cooking channel with his wife, Lisa Faulkner. He says he wants the programme's legacy to survive for its champions and the thousands of contestants who passed through its kitchen.
For viewers, though, the story has become less about cooking than about workplace culture at a flagship show. Two presenters who seemed inseparable on screen have acknowledged they barely existed in each other's lives off it — and now, after the investigations, they do not speak at all.
The split has also been noticed by the programme's remaining stars. Monica Galetti's refusal to discuss her former colleagues, and her admission that contact has lapsed, suggests the MasterChef family presented on screen was always partly a construction of the format. That is hardly unusual in television, but the speed with which two decades of shared history ended — investigations, dismissals and silence — has made MasterChef a case study in how quickly a flagship brand must cut ties when conduct findings land, whatever the personal history involved.