The BBC announced on Tuesday that it had partially canceled its very popular show MasterChef after accusations of sexual harassment targeting one of its presenters.
This deprogramming concerns two episodes of the Christmas special, Celebrity MasterChef Christmas Cook.
“Celebrity Christmas specials are obviously a different type of program and, in the current circumstances, we have decided not to broadcast them,” a spokesperson for the British broadcasting group said.
The recorded season of MasterChef: The Professionals will however continue to be broadcast.
The BBC has been under pressure for several days after accusations of sexual harassment targeting Gregg Wallace, 60, one of the faces of the show.
At issue: “inappropriate” remarks and jokes with sexual connotations, which allegedly took place for more than 17 years.
A sign of the sensitive nature of the matter, the British government indicated on Monday that Culture Minister Lisa Nandy had spoken with officials of the public group.
The person concerned apologized on Monday for “any fault” which he may have been responsible for. The day before, he had provoked outraged reactions by declaring that his accusers were “a handful of middle-class women of a certain age”.
For its part, the production company behind the show announced that it was investigating the reported facts and that Mr. Wallace would no longer present the show during the investigation.
This affair is a new blow for the audiovisual giant, already implicated for its management of several cases notably involving sexual assault.
First, the Jimmy Savile affair, which broke out in 2012 a year after the death of this star presenter, author of rape and numerous sexual assaults against minors for decades. Or the case of Huw Edwards, former star presenter, convicted in mid-September for possession of child pornography images.
At the start of the year, the very popular show Strictly Come Dancing had also made headlines after accusations of moral harassment.
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