I had secret 13-year affair with family friend – before he made shocking decision, reveals Prue Leith

THEY say truth can be stranger than fiction – and Prue Leith’s autobiography is no exception.

The 83-year-old Bake Off judge decided the book, Relish, would reveal all about her dramatic personal life, warts and all.

So on the subject of her late husband, fellow South African Rayne Kruger, who died in 2002 aged 80, she serves up secrets on the 13-year affair they had before marrying.

Prue says of the memoir: “I thought a lot about this: ‘Shall I put everything in, or shall I be discreet and careful?’

“I decided the rules should be, if it’s interesting it should go in, if it’s boring it shouldn’t.

"So many autobiographies, especially from business people, are one long list of their successes in business or the posh people they’ve met — endless name-dropping — and it’s not interesting.

“If there are things in your life you’re not exactly proud of, but they would be interesting to the reader, you should try to tackle them.

“So I did write about the long affair I had with my husband before we married.

“I thought, ‘You know, to skip it when Rayne was the most important person in my life . . . how could I not tell his whole story?’ So I did.”

Property developer and author Rayne finally left his wife, the late South African actress Nan Munro, who was Prue’s mother’s best friend, to start a family with the chef.

But Prue insists she did not demand this.

“I never asked him to leave his wife because I was very happy,” she tells Kate Thornton on the White Wine Question Time podcast.

“I had none of the duties of life and all of the pleasures of somebody who loved me. I wasn’t pressing for marriage.

“We did have 13 secret years and nobody ever guessed because we were discreet.

“But it was easier in a way because he was a family friend, chairman of my company, and he’d helped me enormously and everyone knew we were great friends.

“We didn’t go out to dinner or anything that would create any kind of suspicion. If people saw us together they thought it was because we worked together.”

Once Nan was told, to the surprise of many, she forgave them both and they all remained great friends.

Asked about the unconventional set-up, Prue says: “Rayne was determined. He said, ‘We don’t have enough friends to lose them. We all love each other, we’re not going to let this destroy us’. And Nan took her cue from Rayne, or he from her.

“I remember one of her really famous actress friends said to her, ‘How can you go and have weekends and stay with Prue and Rayne? That woman, she’s a witch, she stole your husband’.

“And Nan said, ‘Are you going to have me every weekend? Shall I come to you instead?’ She said, ‘They are my friends, I love them. Yes, it’s been hard, but Prue’s still Prue’. She was amazingly forgiving. And an extraordinary woman.”

Prue would know all about being an extraordinary woman.

As well as judging Bake Off, and formerly the BBC’s Great British Menu, she is a successful novelist, journalist, entrepreneur and chairwoman.

She says: “People are always astonished I’ve done so much. But if you’re 83, you’ve had lots of time to do lots of things.

“And I think I’ve been hugely lucky. I’m very energetic and healthy, so I’m not doing anything I don’t want to do.”

This has included remarrying — in 2016 — to her current husband, retired English fashion designer John Playfair, which she did not expect.

She says: “When you’re widowed, nothing makes you angrier than somebody saying, ‘Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll find somebody else’.

“I was 62 or something when Rayne died, and I hated people tryng to comfort me in that way. No, I don’t want anybody else.

“But it was really strange when I met John — falling in love is the same at any age. You have exactly the same sensations, your heart goes fast, you feel slightly sick, you think, ‘Is he going to ever ring? If I text him, is it too forward?’ Ridiculous. But it is lovely.

“And we’ve been together 12 years now. We had five years together then decided to get married, though I’m not sure why. It crept up on us, the idea of getting married.”

Prue will be returning for Bake Off’s 14th series later this year.

When asked about the TV role that made her even more beloved by the nation, Prue says: “I’ve been doing nearly 20 years of telly now and, you know what, it’s so easy. If you think about it, I don’t have to do anything. I don’t have to learn a script, I don’t have to write a script, learn any lines, do any rehearsals.”

She says of contestants on shows such as Bake Off: “Most cookery shows are really complicated. You have to make sure it all fits in four minutes, whatever it is you’re doing, you have to worry about the ingredients being in the right place. It’s very tricky.

“I don’t have to do any of that. I just walk on, eat cake, say what I think, walk off and get paid.

“I’m rather nervous that one day Love Productions, the producers of Bake Off, will say, ‘Why are we paying her all this money if it’s that easy?’.”

This Morning presenter Alison Hammond, 48, will join the Bake Off line-up for the new series, alongside Prue and fellow judge Paul Hollywood, 57.

Alison co-hosts with Noel Fielding, 49, after the departure of previous presenter Matt Lucas, 49.

Prue says they started filming a few days ago and she had not seen Paul since last year’s series, apart from briefly at one of her live stage shows last year.

She says: “Everybody was asking what everybody had been doing. I said, ‘Paul, what have you been doing?’ Usually he’s writing books or touring or he’s doing other programmes.

“He said, ‘Absolutely nothing, I’ve done nothing for six months, it’s been bliss’.

“I’m so jealous because I also love doing nothing.

“I love just lying around reading — and I love sleeping.

“Lockdown taught me about having a siesta and, I’ll tell you what, I am addicted to it now — any time I can get. Usually, if I can get to bed by 3pm and get up by 4.30pm, that’s per-fect.”

But it does not seem Prue’s future will be filled with only sleep and reading books.

Asked about her remaining ambitions, she says: “I do want to do a few other things.

“My daughter and I have started a television production company,  she and two of her friends who are all really talented women in their forties.

“One worked for Disney, one for Endemol, and one was a top com- missioner for another company.

“They really know what they’re doing, so we thought we’ll have this all-female production.

“It’s called Relish, actually, which is the name of my autobiography.

“We’ve got some really good ideas. But this has got to be my swan song.”