Prue Leith breaks her silence on spoiling Great British Bake Off final: 'I couldn't sleep for days'

Prue Leith has finally opened up about spoiling the result of this year’s Great British Bake Off, with the TV judge causing a social media frenzy when she tweeted the result of the baking competition hours ahead of the final.

Prue was on holiday in Bhutan, which is six hours ahead of the UK, on the day that the winner was announced and the blunder occurred when she mixed up her time zones – with the 77-year-old chef confessing that she “couldn’t sleep for days” after the mishap.

Speaking out, Prue recalled: “Channel 4 were great. Everybody was, Love Productions, the production company, Paul [Hollywood]… They all emailed me and said ‘Basically it is the sort of thing I could have done. We are really sorry. Don’t worry about it too much’.

“Everybody was wonderful but it was days before I could sleep properly. I still feel absolutely mortified by it. It was awful.”

Prue also got support from an unusual party, with the Prime Minister of Bhutan calling her up after the news broke.

The star continued: “It was really flattering as I have never had a Prime Minister ring me before. It was good for tourism I think.”

Prue tweeted how happy she was for this year’s winner Sophie Faldo in the morning of the Great British Bake Off final – which didn’t air until 8pm that night.

The tweet was quickly deleted but not before it was screenshot and shared thousands of times.

Prue explained to RTE Radio 1: “I congratulated Sophie. And then I thought ‘Why is no-one else congratulating her?’

“As I thought that, Emma Freud tweeted me and then I tried to delete it and I was in such a panic by now that I could not work my phone. I could not.

“So I rang my secretary and she said ‘Don’t worry I have already done it’… 89 seconds afterwards but of course it was too late. It was awful.”

Prue also admitted her regret at taking the thunder away from Sophie’s win, revealing that the show’s final had received the “wrong publicity” as everybody discussed her tweet rather than the winner.

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