Nigella Lawson has been confirmed as a new British judge on Bake Off | television

Nigella Lawson has been announced as a new judge on The Great British Bake Off. She replaced Prue Leith, who quit after nine seasons of judging contestants’ culinary creations, so she could spend the summer enjoying her garden, explaining: “I’m 86 years old!”

Lawson will join the program for its next series, its seventeenth, which will launch later this year. She will work alongside Paul Hollywood, who will continue in the role he has held since the baking competition launched on BBC Two in 2010.

Lawson says: “I’m uncharacteristically at a loss for words right now! Of course it’s hard to follow in the footsteps of Prue Leith and Mary Berry before her, both great women, but I’m also bursting with excitement. The Great British Bake Off is more than just a TV programme, it’s a national treasure – and it’s a huge honor to be entrusted with it.”

“I’m thrilled that Nigella is going to have a great Bake Off experience,” says Leith. “She’s sassy, ​​funny and knows her onions – and her croissants, cakes and crumbles.”

The TV chef has taken a break from British screens in recent years. Her latest series, Nigella’s Cook, Eat, Repeat, aired on BBC One in 2020, and she has appeared more on Australian television in the years since. She was a judge on the Australian cooking competition My Kitchen Rules in 2022 and 2023, having previously been a guest judge on the Qatari version of MasterChef.

Lawson has worked on Channel 4 before, with her first cooking series Nigella Bites appearing on the station. She was also previously a judge on the broadcaster’s cooking show when she appeared on The Taste, where contestants prepared one spoonful of food for her, Anthony Bourdain and French chef Ludo Lefebvre.

She joined The Great British Bake Off at a time when its ratings were well below its peak. On Channel 4, the show never reached the viewing figures it achieved on BBC One, where it averaged 10 million viewers, but was nonetheless a huge ratings success for the broadcaster. But in recent years, the numbers have fallen, falling every year since 2020 – with the exception of the 2025 series, which rose by about 600,000 from 2024 to a total of 7.26 million for the first episode of season 16.

Channel 4’s Ian Katz said: “We’re so excited about the marriage of two great British icons: Bake Off and Nigella… This summer’s series will be as delicious as a Guinness chocolate cake.”