Great British Bake Off star Prue Leith has revealed she is leaving the show after nine years as a judge.
The 85-year-old chef has been a staple part of the Channel 4 show for almost a decade alongside Paul Hollywood, after taking over from Mary Berry.
Since entering the tent in 2017 she has been joined by current hosts Noel Fielding and Alison Hammond, as well as previous presenters Sandi Toksvig and Matt Lucas who have both since departed the show.
In a statement, Prue said: ‘Bake Off has been a fabulous part of my life for the last nine years, I have genuinely loved it and I’m sure I’ll miss working with my fellow judge Paul, Alison and Noel and the teams at Love Productions and Channel 4.
‘But now feels like the right time to step back (I’m 86 for goodness sake!), there’s so much I’d like to do, not least spend summers enjoying my garden.
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‘Whoever joins the team, I’m sure they’ll love it as much as I have. I feel very lucky to have been part of it.’
Love Productions, the company behind the show, praised her ‘genuine expertise and encouragement of the bakers’ as well as her ‘ability to ‘drop innuendos that reduce the entire tent to tears of laughter’, in its message marking her departure.
‘Prue will always have a piece of Bake Off’s heart,’ it concluded.
Meanwhile, Channel 4’s Chief Content Officer, Ian Katz, added: ‘Prue Leith has been a joyous presence in the tent, pairing absolute culinary authority with great generosity and empathy for the bakers.
‘We are grateful for her passion, her wit, her ineffable style, and all the summers she spent in the tent. She leaves an indelible mark on the show and all its bakers.’
He added that he looks forward to working with her on ‘new projects’.
The official Great British Bake Off account said she was ‘simply the best and will be so missed’, thanking her for ‘nine brilliant years’.
Channel 4 has confirmed the next series of The Great British Bake Off will air on Channel 4 later this year and that a new judge will be announced in due course.
Prue’s decision to completely depart from Bake Off comes after she stepped back from the celebrity version.
At the start of 2025 it was confirmed she would be replaced by friend, Caroline Waldegrave OBE.
She said at the time: ‘It’s mainly because these things are filmed back-to-back the whole way through the summer.
‘You start in April, and you end in August and honestly, you get no time off. And so, I’m getting a bit old and there are places I want to go to and other things I want to do.’
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