why do so many people dislike/hate gregg??

i dont think he is too bad but i'm just curious to know what he's done for people to dislike/hate him so much?

For me it's not wearing underpants and having married and divorced thee times - the longest marriage being 5 years, the shortest less than a year. Makes me wonder.

I have to agree with you OP I was quite surprised at the level of negativity leveled at both Simon and Greg. From what we saw from the VTs both guys seemed ok. I've re-watched the programme to see if I missed "something" and at the moment there's nothing any of the celebs have said/done which have warranted some of the comments.

There are three people in this year's SCD who I really dislike and wouldn't want to win but, in fairness to them it has nothing to do with what we've seen on SCD. As we know from previous series "Spin" is everything on SCD so maybe some of the comments have been put there to plant the seed so to speak!

Have a browse of the "rude Aliona"thread, then you will understand.

Things like this -

'Still, he got into a "complete tizz" at the MasterChef studios recently, throwing a screaming fit because someone moved a sofa out of his office and replaced it with a Chesterfield armchair. He apologised only after he had dragged the offending chair out.

More worryingly, it transpires that as a teenager he was embroiled in football hooliganism after he was caught up in a clash between police and Millwall football fans' notorious Bushwackers gang. Wallace ended up being convicted of threatening behaviour.'

I remember that era of Millwall hooliganism and there was an extremely nasty bigoted aspect to it. He also says things about constantly pulling young women that make him sound sleazy and creepy.

I think the word hate is too strong, but if only a fraction of what is printed in the papers about Greg is true it is enough to make people dislike him.

Ouch! Just read the thread, definitely not nice reading. I only watched him on Masterchef and thought he was ok. Thanks


Not nice at all. I can only think that the Beeb have put him on SCD to try and convince us he's a "good guy". As I said in my earlier post it's all in the "spin".

Somebody messaging him on Twitter asking if he could retweet a link for a cancer fundraising thing, only for Gregg's response to be that he spelled his name wrong... that's one example.

Agree with you.

He also opened a restaurant - I think it was last year - got terrible reviews and Gregg just made excuses. How he is a judge on Masterchef I have no idea..

I actually feel sorry for Aliona - think she has been wasted with such an unpromising partner.

I would imagine he is on Striclty as a bit of cross programme promotion for Masterchef the Professionals as both Monica and Marcus are unavailable due to the whole 'proper' day job thing.

How could one not possibly know that the grocering genius spells his wondrous moniker with two glorious 'g's at the end? ****ing plebs. I bet they've never even tried Jerusalem artichokes.

He's a barrow boy who got lucky. (Not that there's anything wrong with being a barrow boy but you know what I mean).

i just did!! 16 pages!! thanks for directing me there....

well, his dancing was pretty dreadful, but not sure why he's attracting the personal dislike.

i don't really know much about him since i don't read tabloids and don't watch much TV. have seen him occasionally on masterchef and he seems ok on that to me.

I dislike hinm as he's one of those who has managed to make a successful media career out of no talent whatsoever!

As some one said up thread, he's a greengrocer who got very lucky. Listening to him on Masterchef (especially the professionals) he only parrots what the chefs say - and he shows his ignorance of cooking when he reveals that he hasn't even heard of some of the classic dishes, and can't pronounce them either. His main role seems to be lasciviously licking pudding spoons and acting as a speaking clock! He has no real qualifications to be a judge on ANY sort of food programme.

Add in the tabloid stories about his womanising/ attempts to pull younger women because he's a celeb/ thuggish behaviour and it doesn't make for a terribly likeable character. Yess, I KNOW that the press tends to over sensationalise things - but there isn no smoke without fire, and if even 10% of that is true, Gregg isn't a very savoury character. It was very clear from the female pros faces at the lauch that every single one of them (bar Natalie who is way too tall for him) was standing there with fingers crossed and praying "Please God, not me!", and the breathed a very obvious sigh of relief when Aliona was called.

Its clear that he wanted to be partnered with Aliona about as much as she wanted to be partnered with him, and that he's nowhere near as good at dancing as he thought he was.

Free Aliona!

I know very little about him but I like what I see of him on TV.

My Dad was a South London greengrocer/market trader - I see a lot of mannerisms that remind me of my late Dad (similarish in looks too) - for that reason I like him and hope he does well.

I don't like him, nasty piece of work. You can dismiss a few stories about his behaviour, but there's just too much out there for it all to be media lies.
But he's not going to be around for long on Strictly, so it's Aliona I feel sorry for..she's one of my favourite dancers. She can be so innovative with her choreography, even if she doesn't always pull it off.

Yep - I feel for Aliona - def given a bad hand by the producers and yet she is one of the more interesting professionals...most of the others are pretty bland. It's obvious she just wants the whole thing to be over.

With the best will in the world if you don't watch the TV or read the papers, then you're not going to know why he (or any of the celebs) come to the show with some people already having formed an opinion of him (/them).

Not aimed at you, just a thought continuation taking someone as you find them on the show is one thing, but it shouldn't really be confusing that others can't put outside knowledge to one side.

Wait, so because people quote rumours in another thread that counts as confirmation of someone's character?

That thread is not the revealed word of God. It's just another collection of people's opinions, speculation and rhetoric.

I'm with primer in not reading the gossip. Or heeding it over much.

Watch him on masterchef - he perves over the female contestants - especially if they are young and attractive!

Some if it isn't just rumour, though, and if people want to make a decision to like/not like someone based on their own personal preferences of behaviour, then that's up to them surely?

and yet it was Lisa Faulkner that ended up with John Torode

Reading how Gregggggggggggggggggggg (sic) refused to wear undercrackers so that when his trousers split in training, Aliona was confronted with his bare behind was just the culmination (whether or not he'd deliberately sabotaged the seam with a crafty KwikUnPick). Tweeted by Aliona herself.

No wonder the poor girl was wearing gloves.

You must dislike an awful lot of people!

Absolutely. Everyone has standards. If they let Ratko Mladic out of jail, or Anders Breivik, I don't want to see them on SCD but they're the kinds of extreme where I feel you need a decisive social answer to behaviour. Not the miniature rights and wrongs of ordinary life. Especially when that ordinary messy behaviour is filtered through our glorious press

ETA I don't much like Gregg, or dislike him. I felt sorry for him in his pitiably frightened Cha Cha last night. Poor sod lost any sense of the whole routine but he kept going and there was a lot of content. Personally, I think Aliona did really well to keep him on track.

I'm not immune to the fun of their crappy relationship. The idea she's wearing gloves for protection is fun. But, but, but, big but... It makes me uncomfortable when a body of opinion decides one thing based on signals, hints and half-heard stuff. For contrast, look at the BBC Facebook reactions to their training vid where folk en masse condemned Aliona for her treatment of poor Gregg. Hardly a voice said otherwise. To me that mass opinion (especially cos it's to do with private lives that we're not part of) is a signal to go slow and not judge yet...