Prue Leith has spoken for the first time about her social media faux pas that saw her revealing the winner of this year’s ‘Great British Bake Off’ ahead of the show’s final.
The restaurateur and food writer says she felt “suicidal” after she mistakenly tweeted that Sophie Faldo had won the competition 12 hours ahead of the final being screened on Channel 4.
Speaking to Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield on Wednesday’s ‘This Morning’ about her ‘Bake Off’ mishap, she confessed: “You’re are going to ask me about that tweet! I think that was one of the worst half an hours [of my life]. That first half an hour, when I realised what I’d done, which was the most idiotic thing in the world.”
Prue went on to explain that she had trouble getting reception on her phone because she was in Bhutan at the time. She said that when she switched her phone back on, she had a message saying ‘don’t forget to tweet the winner after 10.30’, and did just that, forgetting about the time difference.
“I quickly tweeted, as soon as it went I thought, ‘Oh my God!’ I went into a panic mode,” she explained. “I couldn’t work my phone and I couldn’t think how to delete it quickly. I rang my trusted PA and she’d already deleted it. It was 89 seconds after I’d done it but it was already too late.
The 77-year-old then revealed just how much her mistake had affected her.
“I felt suicidal, awful,” she said. “The thing that upset me the most was that this would take attention off the winner. And Sophie [Faldo] has worked for months and months for this moment. The column inches would be about my tweet and not her triumph.
“I emailed her and she said, ‘Don’t be silly’. Actually everybody was really nice about it. Celebrities would tweet me and say, ‘It’s exactly what I could have done’. But you have to be a real idiot to do that. We had kept it secret for eight years until I come along and screw up.”
Prue also said she’d landed her dream job on ‘Bake Off’, admitting being a judge on the show was “enormous fun”.
She said: “What’s not to like? I don’t have to learn a script or write the links. I just have to eat cake! Partly it’s because the production company are lovely and the bakers are amazing. They are great bakers. It’s lovely.”
