Prue Leith QUITS The Great British Bake Off after nine years

The Great British Bake Off judge Prue Leith has revealed she's leaving the Channel 4 show after nine years of judging alongside Paul Hollywood. 

The TV chef, who replaced former show judge Mary Berry in 2017, confirmed she was waving goodbye to the hit baking series, admitting it felt like the 'right time to step back' and make way for someone else to join the team. 

Prue, who turns 86 next month, will wave goodbye to co-judge Paul, 58, and show hosts Noel Fielding and Alison Hammond after featuring in the most recent series of the show, which hit screens last September. 

Prue took to Instagram to confirm her departure, writing: 'After nine series and judging more than 400 challenges, I have decided to step down as a judge on The Great British Bake Off.

'Bake Off has been a fabulous part of my life for the last nine years, I have genuinely loved it and I’m sure I’ll miss working with my fellow judge Paul, Alison and Noel and the teams at Love Productions and Channel 4. 

'But now feels like the right time to step back (I’m 86 for goodness sake!), there’s so much I’d like to do, not least spend summers enjoying my garden. 

'Whoever joins the team, I’m sure they’ll love it as much as I have. I feel very lucky to have been part of it.' 

Love Productions, who are behind the making of the Channel 4 show, said: 'From her genuine expertise and encouragement of the bakers to her ability to drop innocent innuendos that reduce the entire tent (and the audience at home) to tears of laughter, Prue will always have a piece of Bake Off’s heart.'

While Channel 4's Ian Katz added, according to The Sun: 'Prue has been a joyous presence in the tent, pairing absolute culinary authority with great generosity and empathy for the bakers.

'We are grateful for her passion, her wit, her ineffable style, and all the summers she spent in the tent. She leaves an indelible mark on the show and all its bakers. 

'We will miss her wry, gentle judgement but look forward to working with her on new projects.'

Bake Off last aired in September 2025, coming to an end in November when student Jasmine Mitchell was crowned the winner - and it's expected to return to screens later this year.  

Prue previously stepped down from the celebrity version of the baking show in 2024 due to her intense filming schedule - with Paul's friend Lady Caroline Waldegrave taking her place.  

A source told The Sun at the time: 'Prue absolutely loves working on Bake Off but filming two series a year can be punishing on top of her other commitments.

'She has already filmed the normal series, which will air this year but she will not appear on the celebrity version.

'Prue has made it clear she adores the show and would like to come back in 2025. She will turn 85 next year, so it’s not surprising that she wants to take time off.'

It comes after Prue declared she's not too old to have 'romance, love and sex' and reveals why she ditched exercise as she opened up on her age. 

In an extract from her new book Being Old... And Learning To Love It, by Prue Leith, she revealed her secrets to staying young.

She wrote: 'My parents' generation, and many of mine, imbibed the idea that once we're past 60, all sorts of things are "inappropriate" for us: dancing, sitting on a bar stool, wearing pillar-box red, smoking weed. 

'They seem to think we should all wear beige, sit in a corner and knit. I think they were brainwashed. They got the wrong idea of their worth, concurring with the idea that oldies should be neither seen nor heard.

'That we should dress as unobtrusively as possible, that we should stop thinking about romance, love and sex, that we are too old to be of any use to anyone, and that we should devote ourselves to good causes and ungrateful grandchildren.'

She added: 'I find exercise for the sake of exercise painful and unbelievably boring. Being tortured on a pilates reformer machine, forcing oneself out into the rain to go running or doing push-ups on the bedroom floor are all variations of hell for me.'

The star also recently opened up on the huge mistake she made with Mounjaro jabs that left her 'starving, feeling awful and sleeping all day' after a weight loss attempt went wrong. 

Prue admitted that she made an error when she began taking the weight loss jabs, inspired by her husband John, who used the jabs to help shed the pounds. 

Instead of properly reading instructions for the jabs, Prue admitted that she 'didn't eat anything and was starving' which stopped her from losing any weight. 

Instead, the TV presenter and chef was left 'sleeping all the time' and 'felt awful', because her body had gone into 'starvation' mode, stopping her from losing weight. 

Prue said: 'The only reason I did it was because of John, he lost about two stone in a couple of months, and he looked great, and he loved it - and it was much better for his diet, as he was eating much less and much healthier. 

'I thought, "This is easy, and if its so easy for him, then I'll do it", but I absolutely hated it, I just felt awful, I wanted to sleep all the time.

'It was my fault, I didn't read the instructions that you have to eat and you have to exercise, and I didn't eat anything and I was starving, so my body just said, "Since this is starvation mode, I'm not going to lose anything".

'I didn't lose any weight, but I didn't put on anything either.' 

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Prue Leith shares BIG mistake she made with Mounjaro jabs that left her 'starving and feeling awful'

It comes after Prue opened up to the Daily Mail about her experience using the jabs.

She wrote in a column: 'After 60 years of frequent efforts to lose weight, all of them requiring self-control and persistence I didn’t always have, and all of them only temporarily successful, the thought of effortless weight-loss seduced me.

'The final decider was John claiming actually to enjoy his food far more now that he was no longer snacking all day and wolfing down cake and puddings.

'But, sadly for me, the jabs were an absolute disaster. If I’d bothered to read anything about it, I’d have realised that you must eat at least 1,000 calories a day.

'But I was so un-hungry, I couldn’t manage even half of that. You cannot survive on 200 calories a day, which is what I was eating when on Mounjaro. 

'I wasn’t losing any weight. Not a single pound. Every day I’d step on those scales and, guess what? 12st.

'Then I stopped. Within a week I no longer felt sick or exhausted and began to get my appetite back. Huge relief, but what a waste of money. Eight weeks feeling under par, wanting to sleep all the time, hating food, and all to no avail.

'I cannot believe I can have been so stupid. I know about the importance of good food. It’s my job.'