Bake Off viewers outraged as Paul Hollywood breaks golden rule about judging decision on who to send home
BAKE Off viewers have been left flabbergasted after Paul Hollywood appeared to ditch the judging rule he's been using for eight years during tonight's semi-finals - which saw last week's Star Baker, Stacey, leaving.
Co-judge Paul was heard telling Prue Leith, Noel Fielding and Sandi Toksvig that he feels that the contest was so tight that they needed to consider the bakes produced on previous weeks to decide who needed to go - something he's said he would never do.
It's a golden rule of Bake Off that whoever goes is leaving because they did not perform in the three tasks from that week.
But Paul insisted that he and Prue would have to look back at the series history to decide between Stacey, Kate, Sophie and Steven.
And if fans weren't outraged enough by that, they were also swift to point out that just last week Stacey had been named Star Baker - surely a good reason not to boot her off.
Stacey was eliminated tonight after making a less-than-delicious flamingo meringue showstopper but some viewers claimed Kate was equally poor this week and throughout the contest generally.
Seeing as Paul had admitted he is colour blind during a section of the show, angry fans took to Twitter to ask if he was generally blind to see he'd picked the wrong person.
They also picked up on the fact Paul said he would be "looking back retrospectively", which is a bit of a verbal gaffe.
Generally it was another blow to Paul's credibility as a judge after jumping over to Channel 4 without Mary Berry and handing out handshakes left, right and centre this series.
Most fans were still hurting over the loss of Liam in the previous week.
The hashtag #justiceforliam even began trending, and some fans were wondering if he would have survived if Paul had broken his judging rule for him.
Meanwhile other dirty-minded fans of Bake Off had noticed that Prue Leith was wearing a very unusual necklace - that resembled a sex toy.
Steven, Kate and Sophie will now battle it out for the 2017 Bake Off title next week, a year on from Candice Brown's victory.
The final airs at 8pm on Channel 4 next Tuesday night.
