Former Great British Bake Off winner Nadiya Hussain claimed the BBC will ‘keep you until you’re of no use to them’ after her shows were axed
Great British Bake Off icon Nadiya Hussain claims she wasn’t given a “definitive reason” for the axing of her BBC programmes. The star, 40, fronted several food series for the BBC since winning GBBO in 2015 – when the show was on BBC1 – including Nadiya Bakes, Nadiya’s Fast Flavours and Nadiya’s Simple Spices.
However, in June, Nadiya revealed in a post shared on social media that BBC bosses had “decided they didn’t want to commission the show any more”, which she described as a “huge turning point”. This week, Nadiya claimed the BBC will “keep you until you’re of no use to them” during a chat with Paul C Brunson in the We Need To Talk podcast.
She was asked whether she was fired for speaking out and she responded: “I worked with the BBC for a really long time, and there’s points where I’ve kind of looked at working with other channels and other broadcasters, the feedback they gave us was you’re too BBC.
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“I kind of accepted in my head that I was very BBC, I suppose it means that they’ve got me exactly where they want me, I’m utterly unbiased, and just… you’re neutral, and I am not neutral, I have opinions and I have things to say.
“They’ll keep you ’til you’re of no use to them, and I think that’s what happened. Essentially, I got lots of reasons why they couldn’t commission the show, I had kind of rough reasons as to why they said that they couldn’t commission the show, but no definitive, ‘this is why we are not commissioning your show’.
“Considering my show got great ratings every year, like really good ratings, I can’t see there’s a reason why my show wasn’t recommissioned.”
Nadiya claimed the BBC told her to say she was focusing on “different projects” when he show was not recommissioned despite it being further from the truth.
Instead, she posted a social media statement. At the time, she suggested that the TV industry “doesn’t always support Muslim women like me”.
The chef said: “The BBC have decided that they didn’t want to commission a show. And for me, that was a huge turning point because it’s something I’ve done for the past 10 years.
“I was already on this steady trajectory of change and I was thinking about where I wanted my career to go, and when the BBC decided they didn’t want to commission the show anymore, it really did kind of solidify everything for me, and it made me dig my heels in and think ‘OK, I know where I want to be’.”
She added: “As a Muslim woman, I work in an industry that doesn’t always support people like me or recognise my talent or full potential. There’s a lot of gaslighting, making me feel like what’s actually happening isn’t happening.”
A BBC spokesperson said: “After several wonderful series we have made the difficult decision not to commission another cookery show with Nadiya Hussain at the moment. Nadiya remains a much valued part of the BBC family, and we look forward to working together on future projects.”
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