'Great British Bake Off' Judge Prue Leith Says She Was Suicidal After Leaking 2017 Winner
Published: November 22, 2017
Prue Leith had a lot to prove in Season 8 of the
Great British Bake Off. After all, she was stepping in to fill the role of Mary Berry, an iconic judge on one of the most popular television shows in the world. Leith held her own, doing a phenomenal job on the show, until the very last episode when she accidentally
tweeted out the winner hours before the finale aired. (This was months ago, so stop reading now if you don't want any spoilers.)
Speaking on the chat show
This Morning [via
NME] this morning, Leith opened up about just how devastating the mistake was. "I think that was one of the worst half an hours [of my life]," she said. "That first half an hour, when I realised what I'd done, which was the most idiotic thing in the world… I tweeted the name of the winner of
Bake Off by mistake. I was in Bhutan. I had not had any reception for a while."
"I quickly tweeted — as soon as it went, I thought, 'Oh my God!' I went into a panic mode," she continued. "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."
Leith claimed the mistake took a serious toll on her mental health. "I felt suicidal, awful," she added. "The thing that upset me the most was that this would take attention off the winner. And Sophie 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.'"
