Why Paul Hollywood, 52, is like a grandad to me – by Prue, 78!
SHE has enjoyed a distinguished cookery career spanning more than five decades and has been awarded the OBE and CBE for services to the industry.
But when it comes to the Great British Bake Off tent, Prue Leith, 78, considers fellow judge Paul Hollywood to be a grandfather figure – despite him being 26 years her junior.
In an interview with The Mail on Sunday’s Event magazine today, Prue says: ‘I get on very well with Paul. He’s become a good mate. He’s like the grandfather to all of us on the show because – bar him – we are all newbies.’
Prue joined the programme last year when it switched from the BBC to Channel 4.
She replaced her great friend Mary Berry as a judge, and now stars in the hit show alongside other newcomers Sandi Toksvig and Noel Fielding. Only Hollywood remains from the original line-up, and Prue says of him: ‘He will tell me where to stand and remind me what’s coming next. I’m constantly saying the wrong names for challenges and Paul will keep me on track.’
A new series of Bake Off is set to start later this month and Prue confesses she has to look her best on screen.
‘When you do Bake Off, people notice everything,’ she says. ‘I get more questions about my jewellery and my glasses than I do about how to stop cherries sinking to the bottom of a cake.’
Prue first came to prominence in the 1960s, establishing her own Michelin-starred restaurant.
She was also named as one of the best-dressed women in London by the designer Norman Hartnell.
She says: ‘I was tall but more sylph-like then. Now I need to lose half a stone at least. I exercise twice a week and I hate it, but I am very vain.’
And she reveals she barely watched Bake Off during its BBC days.
‘I did see the episode when Nadiya [Hussain] won and thought that was very sweet,’ she says. ‘But I don’t actually watch much telly, which is why I didn’t quite get what a big deal it was and how much it would change my life.’
‘I am very vain’... Read the full sparkling interview in EVENT