Hollywood’s f lirty recipe for show hopeful
HE is becoming more famed for his complicated love life than for his baking skills.
And Paul Hollywood even exchanged a flirty message on social media with one of the new Bake Off contestants.
The divorced baker, 53, replied to aspiring novelist Priya O’Shea, 33, seven years ago when she sent him a picture of a brioche on Twitter.
Mrs O’Shea, who was in her mid-20s at the time, wrote to the chef saying: ‘Good day for tea and brioche in bed!’ Hollywood replied: ‘Great idea x’.
She is one of the new young crop of bakers who will enter the Bake Off tent on Tuesday.
The marketing consultant lives in Leicester with her husband and two children. She has applied for the show three times, including in 2012 when she sent the tweet. ‘I downloaded the application for Bake Off in 2012, the year I got married, but I thought I would never get in’, she said earlier this week. ‘I applied again last year, and then this year I got in and it was so dreamy and unreal.’
More than half of this year’s baker’s dozen of Great British Bake Off contestants are in their 20s and only one is over 40.
With an average age of just 31, they are the youngest group to ever step into the tent. Last year’s series had an average age of 36 and in 2017 it was 39.
The line- up for the tenth series includes student Henry and part-time waiter Jamie, both 20. HGV driver Phil, at 56, is the youngest ‘oldest baker’ since the first series in 2010.
Earlier this month, Hollywood was dumped by girlfriend Summer Monteys-Fullam, 24, after she claimed he tried to force her to sign a gagging order. It came just a fortnight after Hollywood was granted a decree nisi in his divorce from ex-wife Alexandra.
‘It was so dreamy and unreal’