Wearing dark glasses and a determined expression, Gino D’Acampo looked a far cry from his ‘cheeky chappy’ persona during a rare public outing yesterday.
Minus a few Instagram posts – including one with his good friend Fred Sirieix yesterday – the embattled chef has kept a low profile since he was accused of sexually inappropriate behaviour in February.
But, pictured in public for the first time as he returned from Italy to his Hertfordshire home yesterday, the 48-year-old is, sources tell me, refusing to fall victim to a ‘witch hunt’ – and wants his career back however possible.
I can reveal that D’Acampo, whose son Luciano, 23, works as his manager, has approached various publicists about taking him on.
It was no easy task, and he was turned down by at least two – prompting much anger from D’Acampo’s legal representatives.
Exclusive photo of Gino D’Acampo getting into a taxi on a high street
Gino is seen breaking cover for the first time since the controversy began
He has, however, now engaged an unnamed, little-known crisis communications firm in the City of London who have boasted to me that the chef is going to be exonerated.
For it seems that the father of three is preparing for a fight. Insiders tell me that he is refusing to be made ‘a scapegoat’ and is pointing the finger at TV companies including ITV, who gave him his big break on chat show This Morning and game show Family Fortunes.
‘Gino believes he is the fall guy, the scapegoat, if you like,’ says one source close to him.
‘ITV loved him being the one who larked around. He worked for them for more than a decade and they loved him while it was going on. He would be on Family Fortunes, making cheeky jokes, there were incidents on This Morning in front of the cameras which ITV and its viewers loved.
‘So yes, he feels pretty hard done by with all of this. You have to wonder, ITV surely profited from it and now they are running away from it by getting rid of him.
‘Gino is adamant that he did nothing serious and a lot of it was pretty low level shenanigans that goes on in the television industry. He wants his career back.’
Gino retreats into the cab after making his way down a high street
The celebrity chef was spotted for the first time since being accused of inappropriate sexual behaviour
That won’t be easy given the string of allegations he now faces.
I first raised the alarm in March 2023 when I approached ITV over allegations that D’Acampo thrust his groin at a female producer and asked another about her sex life while filming ITV cookery show Road Trip with fellow chefs Sirieix and Gordon Ramsay.
It was also alleged that he would ‘get his c*** out’ and was ‘super difficult’ to work with – prompting several employees to complain to ITV. I learned last December that network bosses had summoned his manager for a meeting to discuss his behaviour.
Then, two months later, a shock investigation by ITV News uncovered multiple allegations of sexually inappropriate and intimidating behaviour.
Dozens of people described his alleged conduct over the past 12 years as ‘distressing,’ ‘unacceptable,’ and even ‘horrendous’.
D’Acampo with his good friend Fred Sirieix yesterday, sharing a bottle of wine on Fred’s Wednesday Wine Club. It raised the question: What – if anything – were they celebrating?, writes Katie Hind
D’Acampo with Gordon Ramsay and Fred Sirieix on a road trip through Italy for their TV show
One production company was reportedly aware of repeated complaints from staff members about D’Acampo’s behaviour – yet continued to work with him on further TV projects.
One woman, given the pseudonym Hannah, claims that she worked with him on a magazine shoot in 2011. In front of an entire crew, she claims he told her he would ‘like to turn me over and f*** me up the a*** against the kitchen counter’.
She recalled a ‘ripple of laughter’ while others ‘looked nervously into their cups of tea’, adding that she felt ‘horror’ and ‘shock’. However she claimed she was not surprised no one intervened.
D’Acampo, who has been married to his English-Italian wife, Jessica Stellina Morrison, for 22 years, has firmly denied all the ‘deeply upsetting’ allegations.
While few have sympathy for D’Acampo, his friends have stressed that he hasn’t faced any police allegations, saying: ‘If you look at what has been claimed, there isn’t anything criminal. Yet he is being treated like someone who has broken the law.’
Quite whether a comeback is likely remains unknown.
But as he posted his Instagram video with Sirieix yesterday, which showed the two sharing a bottle of wine on Fred’s Wednesday Wine Club on social media, it raised the question: What – if anything – were they celebrating?
