Former Bake Off champion Nadiya Hussain has said Bake Off fans are bound to react badly to the new Channel 4 series – and she can’t wait to cast a critical over it herself.
Opening up about how the show’s move from the BBC will transform it completely, she said it will face a tough challenge replacing the best bits, including beloved presenters Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc.
In an interview with The Mirror, the Luton-based mother-of-three compared the move to Top Gear, which saw viewers plummet when host Jeremy Clarkson was replaced by Chris Evans.
Joking that the Bake Off channel-swap has received more coverage than Brexit, she said: “It certainly won’t be the same Bake Off…The one problem with humans is that we don’t like change and the second you change something that we love people freak out a little bit.”
“I might just watch the first series just to criticise a little bit – we just don’t want a repetition of Top Gear do we?”
Talking about her own experience on the show in 2015, she shared how her success and positive reception from the nation’s viewers helped her tackle her battle with anxiety.
She described the condition, which developed after she was racially discriminated against as a child, as a living “monster”.
She said: “I know he’s there and every now and again he will creep up and tap me on the shoulder, but before Bake Off he was in my face and now he’s behind me.”
In less than two years after winning the competition, Nadiya has penned two cookery books and a novel, and last year made headlines again when she was tasked with baking a 90th birthday cake for the Queen.
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