\tRestaurant critic Grace Dent has been appointed as the new judge for \u201cCelebrity MasterChef,\u201d stepping into the role vacated by Gregg Wallace following his departure amid historical misconduct allegations.<\/p>\n
\tDent, who has been a regular guest on the BBC cooking competition for over a decade, will join John Torode on the judging panel for the show\u2019s upcoming 20th series. The announcement comes during a turbulent period for the franchise, which saw the BBC pull its Christmas specials following Wallace\u2019s controversial response to misconduct allegations.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI\u2019ve been watching \u2018MasterChef\u2019 since I was a girl sitting with my dad on the sofa,\u201d Dent said. \u201cMy whole family watches it. It\u2019s all about uncovering and championing talent and to have ended up in this position, is more than a dream to me.\u201d \t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t \t\t\tPopular on Variety\t\t \t \t\t \t \tTorode added: \u201cI have loved working with Grace on \u2018MasterChef\u2019 over the years. She has been an excellent guest, an inspiring critic and also set some incredible challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tDent brings significant culinary credentials to the role, including an award-winning restaurant review column for The Guardian and nine seasons hosting the celebrity food podcast \u201cComfort Eating.\u201d She previously competed in \u201cMasterChef: Battle of the Critics 2023\u201d and has authored more than 20 books.<\/p>\n
\tThe BBC\u2019s head of entertainment, Kalpna Patel-Knight, called Dent \u201cthe perfect choice,\u201d citing her established presence on the \u201cMasterChef\u201d team and reputation as a \u201cworld renowned food critic.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe appointment follows Wallace\u2019s step-back from the show after BBC News investigated allegations of inappropriate sexual comments by 13 people who worked with him across five shows between 2005 and 2022. Production company Banijay U.K. is conducting an investigation into the claims, which Wallace\u2019s lawyers say are \u201centirely false.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe new season of \u201cCelebrity MasterChef\u201d with Dent is set to air in 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Restaurant critic Grace Dent has been appointed as the new judge for \u201cCelebrity MasterChef,\u201d stepping into the role vacated by Gregg Wallace following his departure amid historical misconduct allegations. Dent, who has been a regular guest on the BBC cooking competition for over a decade, will join John Torode on the judging panel for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":22228,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tv-series"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}