TV star Melanie Sykes has accused in TV industry of ‘creating monsters’ and has previously slammed Gregg Wallace’s behaviour
Melanie Sykes has blasted the TV industry, accusing it of ‘creating monsters’. The former TV host and I’m a Celeb star criticised a popular ITV show and hinted at an investigation involving celebrity chef Gino D’Acampo, with whom she co-hosted Let’s Do Lunch with Gino and Mel.
“That Celebrity Juice programme was an absolute abomination over a period of years and years and years and years. I wrote about it in my article for my Frank magazine when I turned 50 to say that it encourages men on the street or everywhere to talk to women like s**t,” Melanie said in a YouTube video shared last week, referring to the ITV show hosted by Keith Lemon, which ended in 2022.
She continued: “I myself had to endure a whole show of listening to a 500-strong audience laugh at some atrocious things that were said to me and about me. My toes were curling, I wanted to die and I couldn’t leave.
“And you all club together and you all, you know, if you’re going to support somebody’s bad behaviour you create monsters. The industry creates monsters, and then the industry says ‘Oh, we didn’t know.’ You did know!” ITV has been contacted by The Mirror for comment.
Melanie, who grew up in Ashton-under-Lyne, stepped back from TV following a comment made by Gregg Wallace on Celebrity MasterChef, added: “Your silence creates monsters, because they honestly genuinely believe – I put it on something the other day, a boundary crossed ceases to be a boundary to these people.”
Mel spoke candidly about the issues of unchecked behaviour in the entertainment industry, saying: “If you’ve just gone that little bit too far and nobody pulled you up on it, you’ve got no reason to believe that you can’t go even further. And if you’re paid to have that kind of outrageous out in the name of entertainment, again why would you think you need to curb it.”, reports the Mirror.
She then subtly referenced Gino following reports that over 40 individuals have alleged inappropriate conduct by the ex-This Morning chef.
“Years ago there was some kind of rumblings about the presenter that everybody’s talking about at the moment, went to some kind of etiquette media training because he’s Italian and the translation, he’s not quite getting it… it’s an insult to Italians. A stupid way of dealing with it. A very narrow-minded, dumb**s way of responding to bad behaviour from a human being in the workspace.”
She added: “I remember once when Gino said to me he can just go up to the powers that be and knock on the door and go in, he doesn’t need a meeting. He was quite pleased with himself that he could do that.
“I feel like I was in a war zone in that industry – 24 years of battling through an industry that didn’t feel right to me anyway. If you’re spending all your time cleaning up people’s s***, just clean the house, clean out the house and start again, that’s all I’m saying.”
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