Great British break up for Hollywood and his wife of 20 years
BAKE Off judge Paul Hollywood has split from his wife of nearly 20 years, he announced last night.
Hollywood, 51, announced the ‘ sad news’ in a joint statement with his wife Alexandra, 53.
A few weeks ago he was pictured in a clinch with previous Bake Off winner Candice Brown at an awards ceremony.
Hollywood and his wife said their marriage had broken down and their focus was now on looking after their son Josh, 16.
The couple, who bought a £1.4million farmhouse near Canterbury, Kent, said they were going through a ‘very difficult time’. It is the second time they have split – they separated briefly in 2013 after he had an affair.
Hollywood admitted he had been unfaithful to his wife with chef Marcela Valladolid, who is 12 years his junior and was his cojudge on the US version of Bake Off.
He walked out on his marriage. However, after briefly declaring himself ‘single and happy’, he said he ‘absolutely’ wanted to be reunited with Alexandra, describing his affair as the ‘biggest mistake of my life’.
To add to his misery, the show The American Baking Competition, was cancelled – dashing Hollywood’s dream of making it big in the US.
Despite seemingly rebuilding their marriage, the couple have been plagued by rumours in recent weeks after Hollywood was pictured in a ‘cosy embrace’ with 2016 Great British Bake Off winner Miss Brown, 32, who recently got engaged.
Hollywood and Miss Brown, who were accused by Bake Off fans of having a ‘flirty’ on-screen relationship, laughed off reports that they shared an ‘intimate kiss’ after the Pride of Britain Awards last month. She described it as a ‘goodbye peck’.
Over the eight series since Bake e Off began, he has regularly been n criticised by fans for allegedly flirting - with the contestants, in particular - Miss Brown and, in 2013, , Ruby Tandoh.
He was accused of giving preferential - treatment to Miss Tandoh, , then 21, with viewers claiming he e had taken a shine to her because e of her looks.
He dismissed the rumours but t perhaps unhelpfully added that t he found another contestant, , Kimberley Wilson, ‘far prettier’.
Hollywood has spent long periods - away from home filming TV V shows, which have included City y Bakes and Paul Hollywood’s Big g Continental Road Trip. His new w Channel 4 series, A Baker’s Life, is s due to air at Christmas and he is s due to appear on the latest US S incarnation of Bake Off, The Great t American Baking Show.
Hollywood, originally from Wallasey, - near Liverpool, was working g as a pastry chef in Paphos, Cyprus, , in 1996 when he met Alexandra at t a scuba-diving school where she e was working as an instructor.
They married on the island two years later before returning to Britain in 1999, where their son was born in October 2001.
Over the last few years the couple have made few public appearances together. One of the most recent is thought to be the National Television Awards in 2015, when they kissed on the red carpet. They also rarely make reference to one another on social media, with Hollywood, who is reportedly t dl worth th £10 £10million, illi posting t the last photograph of his wife in July 2015 in the Bake Off tent.
Hollywood publicly admitted his affair with Mexican Miss Valladolid at the time and said: ‘I did have an affair in America with my co-judge and it was something which was the biggest mistake of my life because actually I still love my wife. I’m at that point at the moment where we’re talking and we’re working to get back together again. i But it is going to take time.’
Mrs Hollywood, who has released two cookbooks, filed for a divorce in 2013 on the grounds of her husband’s adultery, insisting there was no chance of a reconciliation
She told the Daily Mail at the time: ‘I love my husband and I was and still am very proud of what he has achieved, but there is no going back and I just want this finished with and to move on.
‘I don’t know if he still loves me. I’d like to think there’s always going to be some affection there. You can’t share 15 years of marriage and not have anything left, but right now I just don’t know. In the space of four weeks my life changed irrevocably.
‘One minute I was happily married and the next I wasn’t. It was a complete shock.’
However, the couple were reconciled a few months later. In their statement last night, they said: ‘It is with sadness that we have decided to separate. Our focus continues to be the happiness of our son.’ Last night, there was no one at the Hollywoods’ home.
Hollywood has blamed the slump in Bake Off’s viewing figures since it switched to Channel 4 on older viewers who ‘don’t understand how to get past BBC1’. This year’s final was watched by an average of 7.3million, around half the 14million the BBC audience.
‘I don’t know if he still loves me’