Sue Perkins reveals she called the BBC director general over Bake Off contestants' treatment
She hosted the show on the BBC from 2010 until 2016Bake Off original host Sue Perkins has revealed she and Mel Giedroyc threatened to quit the show over the way bakers were allegedly being treated on camera.
Sue, 57, presented The Great British Bake Off with Mel from its launch in 2010 until 2016, when the pair stepped down as the show moved from the BBC to Channel 4.
Speaking on this week’s episode of Elizabeth Day’s How To Fail podcast, she claimed there was pressure to get the most dramatic storylines out of the bakers.
“It was always like, ‘Get the narrative’, but get the most dramatic narrative and make people cry and that’s what they tried to do,” she said.
‘We’ve had enough of this’
Sue said the pair eventually walked out, and she ended up on the phone to the BBC’s director general.
“And then we just said, ‘We’ve had enough of this.’ And we walked out and for some reason I found myself on the phone to the director general of the BBC and I have no idea why,” she recalled.
“We were raising complaints about behaviours and all the rest of it. It just seemed very important in that moment that people were entering our office, our workspace, and you treat them with respect.
“You don’t put a camera in their face and ask about their dead dad. How disgusting.”
She said the pair fully expected to lose their jobs over it. “We’re just grumpy women who went, ‘We’ll get sacked,'” she said. “I’ve lost so much work from going, ‘You can’t treat people like this’ and I’m the one that gets handed my P45.”
Mel, 58, and Sue have previously said they almost quit on the first day of filming in 2010, before pushing producers for a warmer, kinder show.
Sue has spoken about it before too, telling the Radio Times in 2020: “Who wants to see people crying? I don’t. Especially if you work in television and you know the mechanisms that have been used to make them cry.”
Why did Mel and Sue leave Bake Off?
Mel and Sue announced they were leaving in September 2016, when it was revealed the show was moving from the BBC to Channel 4. Mary Berry also left, while Paul Hollywood moved with the show.
Sue added to the Radio Times that they found out about the move from the news.
“There’s no antagonism there. I just think, ‘If you’re going to let us find out that way [from TV], then we’re not really a team, are we?'” she said.
Who presents Bake Off now?
Alison Hammond and Noel Fielding host the 2026 series, with Nigella Lawson joining Paul Hollywood on the judging panel after Dame Prue Leith stepped down.
Representatives for the BBC have been contacted for comment.
The Great British Bake Off semi-final airs on Tuesday, November 17, at 8pm on Channel 4.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI technology to synthesise source reporting and structured data. It has been reviewed, edited, and fact-checked by our human editorial team before publication.
