What a fathead!
Paul Hollywood makes a humiliating apology after calling this creamy, sticky dessert ‘diabetes on a plate’
IT is not the first time he has been accused of making comments that were half-baked.
But Paul Hollywood has had to apologise for his latest controversial remark – a quip about diabetes that fans complained was ignorant and offensive.
Hollywood, 53, made the joke on Tuesday’s Great British Bake Off on Channel 4. Discussing the technical challenge, a gateau St-Honore, with Prue Leith, he described the French dessert of caramelised creamfilled choux buns, puff pastry and chantilly cream as ‘diabetes on a plate’.
Viewers branded his remark disgusting and hurtful, because Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune condition often diagnosed in childhood and not linked to lifestyle. Only Type 2 diabetes is linked to being overweight.
One Twitter user wrote: ‘These people need educating. My son, who is Type 1 diabetic, didn’t eat too much sugar to have this lifethreatening condition.’
Several others posted images of ‘diabetes on a plate’.
They placed piles of tablets, insulin injection pens and glucose monitors on a plate to show just want their daily life involves.
One wrote: ‘I like to call this bake “diabetes on a plate”. I’ve been tucking into it since I was seven years old.’
Another posted a picture of her daughter’s medications, calling it ‘a painful concoction featuring ingredients consumed daily plus unseen anxiety, fear, hypos, hypers + sleep loss... a warrior’s plate’.
One fan said Hollywood should donate to a Type 1 diabetes charity ‘to make amends for his ignorant, hurtful and uneducated comment... you just made it all a bit harder for Type 1 children’.
Others criticised Channel 4 and the show’s makers, Love Productions,
for not editing out the remark. One said: ‘Channel 4 allowing Paul Hollywood to make jokes about diabetes is vile. T1 is a type that is usually diagnosed in young children, it is an autoimmune disease that is irreversible which you cannot help getting.
‘Educate yourself before making ignorant and offensive comments.’
Following the criticism, Hollywood apologised to fans on his Twitter account, writing: ‘A remark re diabetes I made on tonight’s show was thoughtless and I meant no harm, as both my grandad and my own mother suffer/ suffered from diabetes... apologies.’
Claire Levy from the Diabetes Research and Wellness Foundation said: ‘We always say no one suffers from diabetes, they’re “living with” it because it’s a long-term condition. For those living with Type 1 diabetes, it happened to them, it’s an autoimmune disease so they are often quite upset when people do make comments because, as they say, they are living their lives as normally as possible.
‘Obviously everyone should aim for a healthy balanced diet but we all enjoy a Chelsea bun every now and again. Type 2 does have an association with lifestyle and weight but not always.’ She said that if he has relatives with diabetes, Hollywood ‘probably should have known better’ before making his ‘throwaway’ remark.
Love Productions did not respond to a request for comment.
‘Uneducated and hurtful comment’