Prue Leith breaks silence on Bake Off replacement as she steps down from Celeb specials in surprise move

PRUE Leith has broken her silence after she was replaced by a new judge on the Great British Bake Off's celebrity shows.

The Channel 4 star has stepped back from all GBBO specials, with cooking expert, and pal, Caroline Waldegrave filling her shoes.

Prue, 84, has now given her verdict after it was confirmed the legendary cookery teacher would be taking on her role.

Sharing a picture of Caroline on Instagram, Prue gave her good friend the thumbs up.

She said: "Caroline is perfect! The kindest and most knowledgable teacher, the bakers will love her."

Last year, The Sun revealed how Prue had made the decision to step back from the Great British Bake Off specials and focus on the regular series.

This week, Channel 4 confirmed Prue's close friend Caroline would be taking over her role.

Caroline, 72, is a former managing director of Leiths School of Food & Wine, which she bought from Prue in the mid-90s.

Married to former Tory politician William Waldegrave, Lady Caroline has also co-written several successful cookery books.

Meanwhile, Channel 4 has also revealed the line-up for this year's Celebrity Bake Off and it will feature some famous married couples and siblings.

Competing is a raft of actors, including Jim Howick, Gbemisola Ikumelo, Maxine Peake, Self Esteem AKA Rebecca Lucy Taylor, Meera Syal and Sophie Willan.

Also donning their aprons is broadcaster Sarah Beeny, creator of Chicken Shop Date Amelia Dimoldenberg and sibling TV presenters Scarlette and Stuart Douglas.

Other household names include GMB's Kate Garraway, model and author Ellie Goldstein, Loose Women Gloria Hunniford OBE, Roman Kemp, husband and wife duo Chris and Rosie Ramsey as well as comedians Tommy Tiernan, Adam Buxton and Phil Wang.

Alison Hammond will return as host alongside Noel Fielding.

This month, The Sun told how Noel's AppleTV+ show was canned over health woes. However, the upcoming Celebrity Bake Off special was filmed before he fell unwell.

Celebrity Bake Off is part of C4's Stand Up to Cancer campaign for Cancer Research UK and it is expected to return this spring.

Prue previously lifted the lid on her Bake Off future and insisted she is not planning on quitting entirely.

She said: "I won't leave in a hurry, but I will leave some time because I'm getting ancient."

The star explained to This Morning viewers that she was simply finding the gruelling schedules of the civilian series and celebrity one tough.

Prue said: "These things are filmed back-to-back all the way through summer from April to August so you don't get any time off.

"What I'm not doing this year is the celebrity one.”