An affair with a married man can help a girl’s career, says Prue Leith
. . .and she should know!
CELEBRITY cook Prue Leith claimed yesterday that women can get ahead in business by having an affair with a married man.
She said doing exactly that had been the key to her fortune.
The celebrity cook and food school owner said her 13-year-long relationship with South African writer Rayne Kruger meant she still felt loved but had the time to concentrate on her business without being weighed down by housewife chores.
She revealed Kruger, who she later married, would disappear home each evening which gave her time to pour all of her efforts into her work as she did not have to worry about cooking a meal each night nor look after children.
The 75-year- old made the remarks as she spoke about her new book Food of Love at Henley Literary Festival, supported by the Daily Mail, and told the audience that when she did eventually settle down her career had to take a back seat.
However, by that point, Miss Leith said the foundations of her business were so strong it continued to go from strength to strength.
Miss Leith, who has two children, was 21 when she met Kruger, who was already married to her mum’s best friend, actress Nan Munro. She said: ‘I was very lucky because I didn’t actually marry until I was 34. I did have a very long affair with the man who became my husband. So I had this in the background secretly, he was wonderful at helping me, but he was invisible. And he went home at night. So I could work every hour that God gave. I worked really, really hard.
‘I’m not saying that I’m proud of the fact that I had a long affair with a married man. But it did help my business.
‘When we finally married after 13 years, it didn’t half slow me down. But by the time I married and thought about children I already had the business under control. I had the restaurant and the catering company. I hadn’t yet opened the school but I had the bones of the business.
‘When the children came along, things slowed down and all the time before the children went to school things just ticked along.’
She admitted that she had the best of both worlds while carrying out her affair. She said: ‘I did. I wasn’t unloved and I wasn’t alone. I was just grateful that I didn’t have to go home and cook dinner every night, because he wasn’t there. And that I didn’t have small children.’
The cook who has a son Daniel and an adopted daughter Li-Da, said that she thinks the pressure on women to have both children and a great career is ‘quite scary’.
She added: ‘It is impossible to give your full and undivided attention to both family and work. It’s just impossible.’
Miss Leith began her career supplying high quality business lunches with her business Leith’s Good Food, before opening Michelin starred restaurant Leith’s. She has since founded Leith’s School of Food and Wine. She is also a judge on the BBC programme Great British Menu, which sees top chefs compete against each other.
Her affair with Kruger, who died in 2002, was only revealed in her memoir, Relish: My Life On A Plate, pub-
‘I didn’t have to cook dinner’
lished in 2012. Miss Leith was 21 and he was 39 when the relationship began. But the affair was conducted so discreetly that nobody appeared to suspect they were lovers.
She has described Kruger as a man who was ‘ half- uncle, halfgodfather’ to her and said the i r close relationship was ‘practically incest.’
They remained happily married until Kruger died in 2002.
Miss Leith went on to have a fouryear relationship with pianist Sir Ernest Hall. Last year she revealed she had found love for a third time with designer John Playfair.