In this week’s bulletin, Charlie discusses the recent Gregg Wallace scandal and gives an insight into what we can learn from the accusations.
The news over the last few days, especially at the weekend, was full of what Gregg Wallace had done, not done, said, and not said. So, for this week’s bulletin, I thought I would do some research and see what we could learn from the case and how he handled it.
For 20 years, Gregg Wallace has been a TV personality, and over that time, it is alleged he has carried out inappropriate sexual behaviour towards women he has worked with or that appeared on his TV shows. There had been rumours and complaints about him for years and he has been spoken to about his behaviour, but only now has the full story come out, and he has had to resign from MasterChef and his reputation appears in tatters.
So what are the learning points?
The first thing, which is the most obvious thing, is don’t do it; sexual impropriety, inappropriate behaviour, sexual innuendos, and unwanted touching, are not acceptable whether you are a well-known celebrity or a normal person. Just because you are in a position of power and have got away with it for years doesn’t mean you will always get away with it. This behaviour was never appropriate, but the ‘me too’ movement and the prosecution of Harvey Weinstein, the allegations against Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs, and the more recent finding of convicted rapist Connor McGregor, make it even more obvious that this behaviour will not be tolerated and you will be called out.
Gregg Wallace’s lawyers have said that their client denies all the allegations. The issue we have seen with multiple sex cases is that once one person comes forward then the floodgates often open, as we have seen in the Mohammed Al Fayed cases, and several more people come forward to tell what happened to them. The stories of the people coming forward seem very compelling as they tell similar stories on the way Wallace behaved. I was particularly moved by the story told on Newsnight last night by Shannon Kyle, the ghostwriter of Wallace’s autobiography, which was written in 2012. She talked in excruciating detail of what he said to her, how he touched her, and how he behaved around her. The interview can be found here. What was difficult hearing was the way he made her feel and that his behaviour was about “revolting misogyny, predatory and sexual harassment”, trying to belittle and humiliate her. She needed the money from writing the book, and had turned down other work so it would have been very difficult for her to walk away from the job.
Listening to her, you had little doubt that she was telling the truth. Kirsty Wark did an interview for the BBC on her experience of Gregg as a Celebrity MasterChef contestant in 2011, and said he told “sexualised” jokes during filming and it followed much of what others have said. When you have national figures like her all telling similar stories, it is difficult for him to deny it happening. In crisis PR, you always want to put a line under the story and not keep feeding the news. In sexual cases, this is very difficult to manage because as more people hear about the case, it becomes more likely that someone else will come forward with similar allegations, causing the story to continue.
The only way to stop the news cycle is to admit to your behaviour, apologise, and say you are getting some help to address it. You hope that after a period out of the headlines, possibly doing something worthy, you may be able to relaunch your career.
Instead of apologising and keeping quiet, Gregg Wallace decided to apply one of Timothy Coombs’ Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) strategies for dealing with the media, he used the ‘deny crisis response strategies’ and ‘attack the accuser’. He claimed in an Instagram post that the complainants were “a handful of middle-class women of a certain age” and that there had been “13 complaints from over 4,000 contestants” he had worked with in 20 years on the MasterChef show. This of course raised a massive backlash in the press and he was roundly condemned, even by No 10, but also further raised the profile of the story to people who hadn’t heard it before. As Dawn, a colleague at PlanB Consulting, said to me, middle-aged women are the people who have the courage and the self-confidence to challenge bad behaviours, which those younger might find more difficult. Gregg, realising his mistake, apologised on the same Instagram feed and said, “I want to apologise for any offence that I caused with my post yesterday, and any upset I may have caused to a lot of people. I wasn’t in a good head space when I posted it. I’ve been under a huge amount of stress, a lot of emotion, I felt very alone, under siege, yesterday, when I posted it.”. He concluded: “It’s obvious to me I need to take some time out while this investigation is under way. I hope you understand and I do hope that you will accept this apology.”. I think the lessons to be learned is that attacking your accuser is not a very appropriate strategy to apply in a sexual case, it gives the victim more sympathy, people feel you are attacking them again and you lose public sympathy.
Looking at Gregg’s comments, I think it is a useful lesson to learn that if you are in the eye of a PR storm, you will be under great stress and pressure, and those stresses may lead you to make bad decisions and say or do stupid things. Make sure that you have trusted advisors around you and run your ideas past them. An advisor could be a professional PR company, or even a spouse or trusted family member, just someone who you will listen to. You might feel a lot of anger and feel falsely accused and want to lash out at the accusers, but listen to their advice, and avoid the ‘attack the accuser’ mistake Gregg made.
I think it is important that as a celebrity, you understand your standing and how the public view you. Gregg Wallace was a well-known name on TV as a presenter, but he was not a creative megastar. His livelihood relied on TV presenting. He doesn’t seem to have understood that presenters have a shelf life and that if they behave as he did, they will very quickly find themselves out of work and will not work again. This is more reason to recognise, especially when you are told as he was in a 90-minute conversation with BBC executive Kate Philips, that his behaviour was unacceptable. Perhaps he thought he was too big to fail. I will give the last word to Sir Rod Stewart who posted on social media, “Good riddance Wallace… You humiliated my wife when she was on the show, but you had that bit cut out didn’t you? You’re a tubby, bald-headed, ill-mannered bully. Karma got ya. Sir Rod Stewart.”. History didn’t relate to what he did, but there is quite a lot of anger there.
I suspect this will go down as another misbehaving TV celebrity who will vanish from our airways, and his programmes will not be shown on TV. He is not the first and I suspect not the last who will conduct similar behaviours and make similar mistakes in dealing with their PR.
The case of Gregg Wallace is a stark reminder that inappropriate behaviour, especially of a sexual nature, is unacceptable and will eventually come to light. Wallace’s attempts to deny and attack his accusers only worsened his situation, highlighting the importance of taking responsibility and seeking help and not feeding the news cycle. Celebrities must understand their public standing and the consequences of their actions, as failing to do so can lead to the end of their careers and lasting damage to their reputations.
