Bake off winner Nadiya Hussain would nonetheless be on BBC if she had stored her ‘mouth shut’
Nadiya Hussain believes she would still have a job at the BBC if she had “shut my mouth”. The former Bake Off champ reckons had she been less outspoken and did as “I was told all the time, there’s a likelihood that I would have jobs that I don’t have now”.
Nadiya in happier times on her TV show(Image: BBC/Wall to Wall/Tom Kirkman)
Bake Off winner Nadiya Hussain says she might still have a string of BBC shows if she had kept her “mouth shut”.
The cooking star says her relationship with the broadcaster broke down after “really difficult” talks with “people I don’t want to work with anymore”.
She told Radio Times her show was cancelled after she raised concerns about how her programmes were being made.
The mum-of-three, who is now retraining to be a SEN teacher, said: “I need the recipes to be the focus.
“I need it to be less about what I’m wearing, the props and the colour of my lipstick.
“It needs to be about the food.
“Not long after, my show was cancelled.”
Addressing claims she was tricky to work with, she added: “If I was less vocal and I’d shut my mouth and did as I was told all the time, there’s a likelihood that I would have jobs that I don’t have now.
“Unfortunately, as a woman – and a woman of colour – if you speak up, often it’s considered being difficult or being a nuisance.
“I know, from experience, that if I was a man, they’d be like, ‘Oh, you know what he’s like.’ ”
Nadiya, who won Bake Off in 2015, was immediately snapped up by the BBC and hosted several programmes, as well as regularly appearing on The One Show.
The Beeb’s content boss Charlotte Moore described as an “exciting new talent” at the time, praising her “refreshingly authentic voice, great warmth and charisma”.
But now Nadiya admits she cannot even watch Bake Off because “the magic has disappeared”.
She does however still adore Prue Leith, warning her successor Nigella Lawson that she’s “got a lot to live up to”.
Nadiya said of Prue: “It’s very easy to become quite stuffy and very proper, and I love that she’s got a little wild streak about her. I want to be like her when I’m older.”
Nadiya Hussain, the champion of the 2015 series of Great British Bake Off, recently announced that she was stepping down from her teaching role – just days after revealing she had left her television career to teach.
The baker disclosed that she is having to leave her position as a primary school teaching assistant as it “played havoc with her health”.
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