Sue Perkins ‘devastated’ by end of friendship with Paul Hollywood after leaving Bake Off

Sue Perkins presented 'The Great British Bake Off' with Mel Giedroyc from 2010 to 2016

Sue Perkins has admitted to feeling “incredibly hurt” by the way her friendship with The Great British Bake Off’s Paul Hollywood ended.

Perkins hosted the baking competition show along with Mel Giedroyc during its six years on the BBC, leaving along with her co-host and Mary Berry in 2016 when the format was bought by Channel 4.

Appearing on Jessie Ware’s Table Manners podcast, Perkins said that she’d had a great time working with Hollywood while on the show, but their relationship had soured after he chose to remain on Bake Off.

“When we were there, he was incredibly fun. And then stuff happened that made us incredibly sad and incredibly hurt,” she said.

“But he was always like family for years and years and years, and 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 feel talking about it is really uncool. You start pointing the finger and then you become as bad as everybody else.”

Perkins recently revealed that she and Giedroyc nearly quit The Great British Bake Off on their first day of shooting due to the way the show was initially filmed.

“We resigned, basically,” she told the Radio Times. “Because it was not a kind show. They were pointing cameras in the bakers’ faces and making them cry and saying, ‘Tell us about your dead gran.’ So we had very stiff words about how we wanted to proceed.”