Great British Bake Off's Prue Leith addresses future on show after 'planning to quit'

Daily Record

4 hours ago

The Great British Bake Off's Prue Leith has spoken out about her future on the show, after admitting that she threatened to quit the Bake Off universe entirely
Dame Prue Leith considered her departure from the Great British Bake Off empire due to its demanding nature but opted to remain in parts of it after a pivotal chat with Love Productions.
Alongside The Great British Bake Off are various spin-offs such as the celebrity edition, Junior Bake Off, and the Great American Baking Show, which Prue found intense, prompting thoughts of stepping down entirely at 85-years-old.
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On the Spooning with Mark Wogan podcast, she spoke about the impact of her non-stop schedule since joining the hit Channel 4 series.
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She said: "What happened was I thought I've got to have a summer holiday. This is ridiculous, I've been working from April to September without a break for eight years.
"At that point it was for seven years. So, I went to the bosses, 'I'm going to quit. I can't do this anymore'. And it hadn't occurred to me to say, 'Can I quit some of it?'.
"I just thought I had to do it all which was, at the time, Celebrity Bake Off, Great British Bake Off, Great American Baking Show, which is the same thing, and I had been doing junior bake off."
The response was a pleasant surprise to Prue, who acknowledged how amenable the producers were when she broached the subject.
She revealed: "And they said 'Why don't you just quit enough to get the summer holiday you want?' And I said 'Can I do that?' and they said 'Yeah, why don't you choose one that you don't want to do?'
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"On the new schedule I'd like to stay for a while. I want to go before I'm pushed. I don't want some poor executive to be told to tell me."
Rumours about her future on the show have circulated before, and Prue has previously addressed them.
Earlier this year, there were reports that Prue's friend, Caroline Waldegrave OBE, would replace her on a celebrity version of Bake Off, the Great Celebrity Bake Off for Stand Up To Cancer.
In an interview with the Independent, Prue shared her feelings about the show. She said: "I absolutely love working on Bake Off and am looking forward to filming the next series and meeting our new bakers.
"I am only stepping back from the Celebrity series, which is just a question of the filming commitment involved as we make these shows back to back."