Famous British TV personality denies making inappropriate sexual comments to women
Gino D’Acampo, a famous name to British TV viewers, has been accused of making inappropriate sexual comments.
D’Acampo, best known for his work with ITV, is the subject of a new investigation by ITV News. The allegations paint a picture of a disturbing pattern of behavior—some of which was in plain sight.
After the ITV News article dropped, British news outlets trawled D’Acampo’s old TV appearances and found instances of him making sexual comments live on air. The Mirror reports that he once told presenter Fearne Cotton she could “suck like f***,” and The Sun has unearthed footage of him making a crude comment about his This Morning co-star Holly Willoughby’s private parts.
Just as bad, if not worse, are the details about what D’Acampo said to women he was in a position of power over. According to one woman, named in the piece as “Hannah,” D’Acampo once told her while on a magazine shoot that he’d like to “turn [her] over and f*** [her] up the a** against the kitchen counter.” Some people laughed, some “looked nervously into their cups of tea”—but no one actually did anything.
Another woman, identified as “Natalie,” alleges that when she knocked on D’Acampo’s door to brief him on a shoot, “He opened the door in his boxer shorts, nothing else. And jumped on the bed and was sort of – leg up.” Then, she says, “We had to sort of sit there facing him and he made, you know, reference to his d***, basically saying, ‘Oh, don’t worry, it’s only small’, and sort of flicking it.”
An unnamed female crew member on one of D’Acampo’s shows said she believed the presenter “use[d] his power to bully and intimidate us” and that his “’cheeky chappy’ persona allows him to hide in plain sight.”
Those are just some of many allegations against D’Acampo. He denies them all. He told ITV:
“I have never been made aware of these matters previously and the allegations are firmly denied. I would not do anything that I thought would upset or distress anyone. This is simply not in my nature. I do not recognize the version of events being put to me.
“Not only have these allegations never been raised with me before, I have been repeatedly supported by executives at the highest level and was commissioned on prime-time programs during the period in which it is now suggested I was acting inappropriately.”
“I am a father, husband and have worked with well over 1,500 people on around 80 productions in my career, which I have been so proud of. I take such matters extremely seriously and the suggestion that I have acted in an improper way against is deeply upsetting.”
But there are simply too many claims to ignore. This sort of behavior isn’t funny—it’s sexual harassment.
As is often the case when a public figure falls from grace, people wonder how on Earth this alleged behavior was allowed to go unchecked. But D’Acampo is at least facing consequences. His upcoming shows—Gino’s Italy: Secrets of the South and the game show Family Fortunes (the British version of Family Feud)—have been pulled from the ITV schedules. D’Acampo has filmed an upcoming season of Family Fortunes but that has reportedly been canceled in the wake of the allegations.
It remains to be seen where his career goes from here.
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
