‘Great American Baking Show’ Reveals Winner After Johnny Iuzzini Scandal
Removing sexual harassers from their posts comes with the added cost of dragging down projects around them. ABC even pulled The Great American Baking Show entirely when allegations against co-host Johnny Iuzzini broke, and the season’s winner has now been revealed early.
It was only last week that ABC opted to pull Season 3 of The Great American Baking Show, after at least eight women came forward with claims of Iuzzini’s history of harassment and abuse, dating back to 2004. Iuzzini was himself fired, and the network offered of the unaired episodes that “this season’s winner will be announced at a later date.” Now, a Facebook post to the show’s page reveals that attorney and part-time baker Vallery Lomas won the competition, while the video allowed Lomas to comment on the issue (h/t Variety):
It’s important that we take a moment — our society has a moment to heal from this because the actions of Johnny, not only have they hurt the women that were in the kitchen with him, but it has spread to the other contestants, the crew, and myself. His actions have caused us harm as well by us not having a chance to continue to share our love of baking with all of you. […]
The show being pulled — it was a small road bump and if that’s something that I have to shoulder and the other contestants have to shoulder so that we can stand around this issue and make sure that this is something that gets addressed and that women in this country and in our society have safe spaces, then that’s something we gladly bear.
It remains unclear if ABC will proceed with a fourth season of the show, absent Iuzzini as host. The network also previously took the step of firing The Chew host and celebrity chef Mario Batali, owing to similar claims of sexual harassment. Stay tuned for the latest in the meantime.
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