Ex Great British Bake Off host Sue Perkins has told of a ‘painful’ fallout with judge Paul Hollywood when she and co-presenter Mel Giedroyc decided to quit the series.
She said the pair were ‘incredibly hurt’ by their quarrel with Hollywood after they left the hit BBC show in 2016 with judge Mary Berry.
Sue, 50, did not go into detail, but said Hollywood, 54, had previously been ‘like family for years and years’ and said she was ‘sad.’
Opening up: Former Great British Bake Off host Sue Perkins has told of a ‘painful’ fallout with show judge Paul Hollywood when she and co-host Mel Giedroyc decided to quit the series.
‘When we were there [on the show] he was really good fun,’ she told the Table Manners podcast. ‘And things happened that made us sad and incredibly hurt – he was always like family, for years and years and years.
‘And it’s painful when those things end…I’m devastated about what happened but I feel talking about it is just uncool and you start pointing the finger.’
Sue has also claimed that The Great British Bake Off judge Hollywood passed off bread made by her as his own.
She said he would often use her mornings off from filming to craft the ‘hero bakes’ that Paul, 54, would then claim to have made himself.
Sue explained: ‘I made a lot of bread – I was quite good at making bread. A few of the Paul Hollywood hero bakes were made by me, actually, and my mates in the prep kitchen at the back.’
Difficult: She said the pair were ‘incredibly hurt’ by their quarrel with Hollywood after they left the hit BBC show in 2016 with judge Mary Berry
Sue went on to explain that she and Mel took it in turns to film, so when she wasn’t in front of the camera she would be in the kitchen.
She continued: ‘We would alternate, so if it wasn’t my morning to [film] I essentially had the whole morning off.
‘So rather than just go and watch television my favourite thing would be to go [bake] because I absolutely love food and cooking…
‘I made most crew lunches most days – they’d have pizza and brownies and curry and whatever else we could scrape together.’
Sue and Mel hosted Bake Off on the BBC from 2010 but did not move with the show to Channel 4 in 2017.
They were replaced by Noel Fielding, 46, and Sandi Toksvig, 61, who will herself be replaced by Matt Lucas, 46, for the next series.
Leading ladies: Sue and Mel hosted Bake Off on the BBC from 2010 but did not move with the show to Channel 4 in 2017
Mel revealed that she had not watched the show since she left. She added: ‘I like to think that Perks and I created the tone for it. We wanted it to be a comforting watch and hopefully we established that.’
Last month, the pair told how they quit on day one of Bake Off because the way it was made was ‘not kind’, with producers making contestant cry. But they returned after ‘stiff words’ with the production team.
Sue told Radio Times: ‘We resigned, basically. Because it was not a kind show.
‘They were pointing cameras in the bakers’ faces and making them cry and saying, “Tell us about your dead gran”.’
‘So we had very stiff words about how we wanted to go from there. I think we can say that, now we’re out of it, can’t we?’
She continued: ‘It was painful, and we’ve kept our counsel as to the whys and wherefores, and I think there is dignity in that. It’s a show about cakes and the moment you get tied up in intense feelings you tell yourself to stop being silly.
Fantastic four: The most recent series saw Paul judge alongside Prue Leith, with Noel Fielding and Sandi Toksvig as presenters. Sandi has now quit and will be replaced by Matt Lucas
‘We’re quite cheesy and homespun and we just want to have a laugh. Who wants to see people crying? I don’t. Especially if you work in television and you know the mechanisms that have been used to make them cry.’
Mel said another reason why they quit the show was because of the way they discovered it was moving to another channel.
The makers of the hit baking show Love Productions announced they’d signed a deal with Channel 4 and would be leaving the BBC.
But they didn’t let the judges of the show know about the decision, which was a key factor in Sue and Mel’s decision to leave.
Sue said: ‘There’s no antagonism there. I just think, “If you’re going to let us find out that way [from TV], then we’re not really a team, are we?”‘
That takes the biscuit! Sue said she often used her mornings off from filming to craft the ‘hero bakes’ that Paul would then claim to have made himself