Former ‘Great British Baking Show’ Co-Host Sue Perkins Spoke About Paul Hollywood

Longtime fans of The Great British Bake Off, known in the U.S. as The Great British Baking Show, will remember the show’s original panel of four consisted of co-hosts Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc and judges Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood. Only Paul remains on the show, and now Sue is speaking out about how “painful” it was to have a falling out with him.

Back in 2016, the show moved from BBC to Channel 4 in the U.K. and Paul was the only one of the original four to move to the new network. Sue recently told the Table Manners podcast that the whole ordeal was “painful” and implied she had a falling out with Paul.

“When we were there, he was really good fun, and stuff happened that made us incredibly sad and incredibly hurt,” she said: “He was always like family, for years and years and years. I think it’s painful when those things end, especially in the way that they did end.”

“I’m devastated about what happened, about lots of it, but I just feel, sort of talking about it is just uncool and you start pointing the finger and you become as bad as everybody else,” she continued.

She clarified that there is no “rancor” there and said that new host Matt Lucas will do an “amazing” job.

Sue also said that she cooked for the crews most days when she appeared on the show and that a few of the “hero bakes,” or example recipes that contestants were meant to recreate were actually made by her and not Paul Hollywood.

“I made a lot of bread–I was quite good at making bread. A few of the Paul Hollywood hero bakes were made by me, actually, and my mates in the prep kitchen at the back,” she said.

Mel also appeared on the podcast and said that she has not watched the show since she left and the panel changed to Paul, judge Prue Leith, and co-host Noel Fielding and now former co-host Sandi Toksvig.

“I like to think that Perks and I created the tone for it. We wanted it to be a comforting watch and hopefully we established that,” she said.