Nigella Lawson has been announced as the new judge on The Great British Bake Off. She replaces Prue Leith, who stepped down after nine seasons of judging contestants’ culinary creations, so she could spend summers enjoying her garden, explaining: “I’m 86 for goodness sake!”
Lawson will join the programme for its next series, the 17th, which will launch later this year. She will serve 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 rather lost for words right now! Of course it’s daunting to be following in the footsteps of Prue Leith and Mary Berry before her, great dames both, but I’m also bubbling with excitement. The Great British Bake Off is more than a television programme, it’s a national treasure – and it’s a huge honour to be entrusted with it.”
Leith says: “I’m thrilled that Nigella is to experience brilliant Bake Off. She’s sassy, fun and she knows her onions – and her croissants, cake and crumble.”
The TV chef has taken a break from British screens in recent years. Her last 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 culinary competition My Kitchen Rules in 2022 and 2023, having previously been a guest judge on the country’s 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 a culinary show for the broadcaster when she appeared on The Taste, in which contestants prepared a single spoon of food for her, Anthony Bourdain and French chef Ludo Lefebvre.
She joins The Great British Bake Off at a point when its ratings are far below their peak. On Channel 4 the show has never reached the viewing figures it achieved on BBC One, where it averaged 10 million viewers, but was nonetheless been a ratings success for the broadcaster. In recent years, however, numbers have slipped, declining every year since 2020 – bar 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 incredibly excited about the marriage of two great British icons: Bake Off and Nigella … this summer’s series will be as mouthwatering a prospect as her chocolate Guinness cake.”
