Melanie Sykes has revealed that a comment made to her on Masterchef resulted in her rethinking her entire TV career.
Sykes appeared on Celebrity MasterChef back in 2021, but it was after this appearance that she decided to step back from mainstream telly for good.
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Sykes, 53, first appeared on telly as a host on Today with Des and Mel, alongside Des O'Connor.
She's always been a favourite face on daytime TV and also hosted Let's Do Lunch with Gino D'Acampo as well as appearing on the likes of The Big Breakfast, The Great Pottery Throw Down and The Paul O'Grady Show.
But after her stint on the cooking programme, Sykes admitted she 'was done' following years of 'being thrown under the bus'.
Writing in her autobiography, Illuminated: Autism & All The Things I’ve Left Unsaid, Sykes explained that a comment from Gregg Wallace changed everything.
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She recalled being told by Gregg that her appearance on the show 'would do a lot for you', but in fact it made her 'decide to end my television career once and for all. I was done.'
In an interview with the Guardian in 2022, Sykes said she would no longer be 'tap-dancing for corporations who couldn’t give two hoots about my wellbeing', adding that mainstream telly 'just doesn’t interest me... I’m out of that game'.
Sykes also claimed that she was often 'thrown under the bus' within the TV industry a number of times.
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In the book, she explained that a gameshow she was due to co-host with Mark Wright that had already been filmed ended up being cancelled due to a breach of television gambling rules.
"The line was that Mark and I had ‘failed to understand the concept of the game’. I was fuming. Thrown under the bus yet again. This industry was a horror story," she said.
Sykes also recalled an incident at a New Year's Eve special in which a colleague lay on the floor and looked up her skirt.
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"I was horrified and screamed. He got up and I threw a drink all over him. It was all caught on camera," she said.
“[It was] edited it in such a way that they did not use the footage of him, only footage of me losing it... I just looked crazy”.
After being diagnosed as autistic and suffering a breakdown, Sykes now wants to use her profile to help others.
Topics: Celebrity, TV and Film
Lucy Devine