No, Chef, That Isn’t “Seasoning”

Gregg Wallace usually tells nervous home cooks their soufflé’s “a bit under”. This week he tried a brand‑new recipe: dishing up his late‑in‑life autism diagnosis to explain away a stack of sexual‑misconduct claims. His pitch? “I’m autistic, I didn’t know better”… The autistic community stood up to collectively roll its eyes.

When Autism Becomes Body Armour

Wallace’s five‑page Instagram novella was classic crisis PR: a tiny apology, a bucket of self‑pity and extra blame on the side.

He even rolled out a mate to say he “cannot wear underwear because of autistic hypersensitivity”…. fine, you may well have a boxer‑short aversion, but that still doesn’t make trouser‑dropping OK on set

It would be funny if it wasn’t so deeply offensive to autistic people who graft daily for basic respect, and to his colleagues also.

The Real Damage – Stigma On Tap

Blaming autism for bad behaviour throws two spanners at once:

• It paints autistic people as walking hand‑grenades. Dan Harris – autistic CEO of Neurodiversity in Business (NiB) – nailed it: “Autism is not a free pass for bad behaviour… comments like this stigmatise us”
• It gifts harassers a ready‑made alibi. Survivors already battle disbelief; now they’re told the bloke was “just autistic”. As Dan said on BBC Radio 5 Live: “Autism is not an excuse for harm. We’re here to separate fact from spin”