TV presenter, 59, is unrecognisable in a throwback snap from his youthful days – can YOU guess who it’s?
He’s the Bermondsey-born fruit and veg man who has charmed (and at times irritated) who have watched him on TV for the last 20 years.
Despite being expelled from school at the age of 15 and starting out as a greengrocer, he has carved out a hugely successful television career for himself alongside writing numerous best selling cookery books.
The presenter is rarely off our screens and has featured on various BBC shows, from documentaries to cooking programmes.
But the TV regular looks almost unrecognisable in a throwback snap without his glasses and, most importantly, with his hair.
Can you guess who it is?
A TV presenter, 59, looked unrecognisable in a throwback snap featuring his hair – he is rarely off our screens and has featured on various BBC shows
Ding ding ding! It’s Gregg Wallace.
The MasterChef co-host has changed in more ways than one since this picture was taken.
As well as losing more than 5st, Gregg has sought help from a therapist having been left emotionally scarred by his upbringing.
He claimed in his autobiography Life On A Plate that he was sexually abused by his babysitter’s husband when he was eight.
When he was 15 his mother left the man he thought was his father and ran off with her boyfriend – who then turned out to be his real dad.
Gregg claimed he felt unloved and unwanted. Expelled from school after a run-in with a teacher, he left home, living in an empty flat owned by his father.
He gradually worked his way up, setting up his own fruit and vegetable business – earning himself the nickname ‘Gregg the Veg’ from friends – in 1989 and supplying restaurants including Quaglinos, where young Aussie chef John Torode was working.
John and Gregg were put together by a TV production company, Shine, who were looking for new names to relaunch MasterChef in 2005.
Gregg, pictured left, was almost 17 stone when he was told he had to lose weight. Now he is around 12 stone, pictured right
John Torode (left) and Gregg (right) were put together by a TV production company, Shine, who were looking for new names to relaunch MasterChef in 2005
By then Gregg had chalked up two marriages. His first wife Christine, left him after just six weeks.
His second wife, pastry chef Denise, lasted longer and they had children Tom and Libby. But Gregg admitted to a string of affairs and they split up in 2004.
The divorce was messy and involved a lengthy custody battle, which coincided with Denise’s spiral into alcoholism. Eventually, Gregg won full custody of Tom and Libby.
Sadly, Denise passed away in 2017.
Gregg met his future third wife Heidi after she sent him a question about celery on Twitter in 2009.
She was a teacher and 27 years old when she met 44-year-old Gregg.
Within four months they were living together and they married in 2011, in a full dazzle of media attention including a big-money deal with a celebrity magazine.
They split after a year. He said they both ‘struggled with proper intimacy’.
Next came a dalliance with 26-year-old glamour model Cara Franco, whom he had met at an exhibition, but they split up after he told an interviewer that he was still in love with Heidi.
When Gregg and Heidi separated in 2012, just 14 months after their wedding, he began dating leggy, beautiful women who made him feel, he said in a previous interview with the Mail, ‘like riding in my Jag with the roof down’ when he walked into restaurants with them. His therapist told him he was never going to find happiness if he kept picking women like he picked cars.
‘The reason I had so many girlfriends was that I was always looking for somebody,’ he revealed.
‘I think it’s an absolute game of chance. What are the chances of finding somebody who you’re not only attracted to and makes you feel comfortable and happy, but is actually looking for what you have to offer? What is the chance of that happening?’
Having once again turned to Twitter – now X – to find a new young girlfriend, he soon announced that he was dating Anne-Marie Sterpini (known as ‘Anna’), then 27 and 22 years his junior.
The caterer had messaged Gregg to ask if rhubarb really went with duck, a combination he had suggested on air.
The married couple now live together in a £1million farmhouse with their five-year-old son as well as his mother-in-law. Anna’s father Massimo tragically died aged just 66 last year.
Gregg Wallace met his third wife Heidi Brown, pictured, on Twitter in 2009 – the eventually split
Anne-Marie (left) and Gregg Wallace (right) married in 2016 and live together in Kent – with their children and Gregg’s in-laws
But despite living with his tight-knit family in an idyllic farmhouse, Gregg said his traumatic childhood experience left him with a hot temper and so much stress that he would develop a cold sore-type rash across his face.
Strictly bosses were so worried about him when he was on the show they recommended he saw a therapist.
‘My main problems are low self-esteem, the fact I’m a workaholic and a completely illogical fear of being poor,’ he said once.
As well as working on his mental health, the TV presenter was set on being ultra-fit after his doctor warned him that his expanding waistline could cause a heart attack in 2017.
Gregg, who is 5ft 8in and weighed 16st 7lb at his heaviest, admitted that he was not happy when he was overweight so he knew he had to drop the pounds.
While he continues to split opinion, Gregg’s 5st weight loss and endless positivity despite a troubled childhood and chequered love life has seen him become somewhat of a wellness guru and life coach.
His new buff figure and fitness plans have won him new fans on social media.
Gregg left fans baffled after revealing his typical weekend routine which includes a ‘no sweat’ workout, a fry up at the Harvester and hours playing historical war video games
Indeed an article about Gregg’s typical Saturday, detailed in a national newspaper, quickly began trending on X and shared on WhatsApp groups – with many comparing him to Alan Partridge.
As well as keeping in shape for wife Anna, Gregg also said he wanted to be in good health for their baby Sid.
Speaking to Closer magazine, Gregg says his youngest child gave him the ultimate motivation to overhaul his physique.
He said: ‘Having my baby boy made me want to be fit and strong. I can now go for long walks, which I wouldn’t have been able to do before.’
The TV star married wife Anna in August 2016 at a luxurious ceremony in Hever Castle in Kent.
He said: ‘Anna being younger than me was even more of an inspiration to be fit – you can have an old husband but she didn’t have to have a fat, old husband.’
After dropping down to a slimmer size, Gregg keeps up his weight loss with regular work-outs five times a week.
The TV presenter recently took to Instagram to deny claims he boasted about his sex life to a younger female employee and took his top off in front of her while filming a game show, saying he would never ‘flirt with’ or ‘hit on’ another woman as he is ‘madly in love’ with Anna.
Bosses at the Beeb are said to have hauled the MasterChef co-host into a meeting in 2018 following allegations of ‘inappropriate sexual comments’ and told him to ‘change his behaviour’.
Gregg said: ‘The story that’s hitting the newspapers this morning was investigated promptly when it happened six years ago by the BBC.
‘And the outcome of that was that I hadn’t said anything sexual. I’ll need to repeat this again. I didn’t say anything sexual.
‘Despite what the newspapers are suggesting nobody six years ago accused me of flirting with anybody or hitting on anybody.
‘And the reason I say this is because of my wife Anna. I have always been true to my wife Anna and have never flirted or hit on anybody in the 12 years [since] I met her and fell in love with her.
‘And it’s important that, so that people don’t misunderstand that, that I am true to my wife.’
