Why Mel and Sue quit Bake Off on first day of filming
FORMER Bake Off hosts Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc have revealed they quit on the first day of filming because the show was making contestants cry.
The comedy double act only agreed to come back if chiefs toned down the nastiness.
Sue, 50, said they’d been horrified by the behaviour of Love Productions’ producers when the baking contest started on BBC2 in 2010.
She said: “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 stiff words about how we wanted to proceed.
Stress
“We’re quite cheesy and homespun and we 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.” She went on: “If you take the general public and you don’t make them feel welcome, essentially what the programme is doing is studying the effects of stress, not looking at how they bake.”
In the interview in Radio Times, Mel, 51, said: “We wanted to make Bake Off kind. That was absolutely our No 1 priority and on day one we had a frank chat with the producers.” She also revealed she had no regrets about quitting the show for good when it was snapped up by Channel 4 in 2017. Mary Berry also left but co-judge Paul Hollywood stayed on.
Mel said: “It was the right time. I think it’s good to leave the party before the sandwiches start to turn up at the corners.”
Sue told how they discovered the BBC had lost the series via a TV news report: “I just think, ‘If you’re going to let us find out that way, then we’re not really a team, are we?’”
The pals have returned to acting and will soon appear in Sky One’s Hitmen – a six-part comedy series starting on March 25 – where they play assassins.
Despite the subject matter, they again wanted to ensure it was not too nasty.
Mel said: “We were adamant there should be no revelling in the killing or gore.And we only kill very bad people.”