Mary starred on Bake Off back when it aired on the BBC from 2010 until 2016
Dame Mary Berry has revealed the reason why she avoids watching The Great British Bake Off following her exit from the popular series.
Mary appeared on the debut episode of the iconic series back in 2010 alongside Paul Hollywood. The now 90-year-old became a global star after Bake Off became a global juggernaut in terms of viewership numbers.
Serving as a judge for the first four seasons of Bake when it aired on the BBC, Mary made the decision to leave the series in 2016, one year before it moved to Channel 4, where it continues to air to this day.
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Having been replaced by Dame Prue Leith, May has now revealed that she stopped watching the programme due to it being the last thing her 93-year-old husband, Paul J.M. Hunnings, would want to see after working with food all day long.
She told the Daily Star newspaper: “I don’t think it’s fair on my husband. We’re testing recipes all the time, thinking what’s going in the next book. It’s not fair in the evening to turn on a cooking show as he’s seen quite enough of it.”
It’s been a turbulent period for Bake Off, with Prue announcing at the beginning of the year that she was leaving the programme. Prue has since been replaced by food writer Nigella Lawson.
Having her say on the news, Mary is ‘absolutely delighted’ that Nigella will be on the programme’s 2026 series, which is expected to air in mid-to-late September.
Speaking at January’s the Radio Times Covers Party 2026, Mary said: “I’ve also recently heard Nigella Lawson is the new Bake Off judge, and I’m absolutely delighted. It will give Bake Off a wonderful new flavour, and Paul and her will get on like a house on fire.”
Offering her advice to Nigella, she added: “The skill to be the judge and to be fair, be kind and encourage everyone to enjoy baking.”
Another person who is looking forward to seeing how Nigella fares is Prue, who admitted that she will be ‘very different’ to how she was on the series.
“She’s a class act, she really knows what she’s doing. She knows her onions – people will expect her to know about cake, which she certainly does, but what they won’t expect is how clever she is, how sharp, witty – she’s really erudite. She’s a fantastically clever woman,” she told the Daily Star.
Nigella recently admitted that she will leave all the technical judging to Paul and focus on the ‘eating’, as she does not ‘look for fault’.
She said on This Morning: “I feel that I’m not someone who looks for fault. I look for pleasure as a basic. That is my basic – I wouldn’t say it’s philosophy – my basic attitude in life.
“And I feel that Paul Hollywood is, you know, Mr. Technical. I’m all about the eating. You know, if I see my job as eating, I feel it’s not so it’s not too daunting. I can eat.”
Nigella continued: “Well, I’m really looking forward to it. Listen, I think Prue is just fantastic, and Mary Berry was fantastic before. So if I think about it like that, I do, then I feel like, ‘Oh no’, you know, I get really frightened.
“So I’ve just got to say, you know, that they have given me the honour of offering me this, and I just want to do it as well as I can, and just, you know, become a part of it and enjoy it.
“I’m very excited about meeting all these new bakers to come. And that’s it. It is very much about them [on] the show, and that’s how that’s what I love about it as well. You know, lots of competition programmes can be a bit hard edge, and it’s [not that].”