Paul Hollywood says ‘everyone’s entitled to a mistake’ as he promotes new TV show
The Bake Off star defends Prue Leith's Twitter gaffe and reveals his new TV show will show the real him
Paul Hollywood says he hopes his new TV show Paul Hollywood: A Baker's Life will show him in a whole new light.
The 51-year-old, who recently split from his wife Alexandra of 20 years, says he's been given unnecessary stick for going to Channel 4 with The Great British Bake Off when it moved on from the BBC.
"I've been put through the mill for staying with a TV programme. Ultimately I never left the BBC.
"I never actually left anything. I stayed with something. It is really ridiculous the level that it all got to, but it just makes me laugh now," he tells this Saturday's TV Magazine.
The heat was briefly taken away from Paul recently when new Bake Off co-judge Prue Leith hit the headlines as she got her time zones mixed up on holiday in Bhutan and tweeted congratulations to this year's GBBO winner Sophie Faldo a few hours before the final had actually aired.
"Everyone's entitled to a mistake" he says, "I'm sure she won't do it again."
A Baker's Life - which combines his baking talents with him revisiting some of the most important places and people in his life - will see him in his hometown on the Wirral, Merseyside, with his mum and two brothers and over in Cyrus where he met estranged wife Alex in 1998 while working in a five-star hotel.
“I think ultimately people will get to know a little bit more about me through this," he says.
“David Walliams asked me last year if I was all right and before I could answer, he said: ‘I know what you’re going to say, but if that’s what they’ve put you as [the villain], embrace it. Don’t fight it any more.’ So now that’s what I do. But it is so different to the real me.”
The TV chef, who was previously separated from Alex in 2013 following his infidelity with US Bake Off co-star Marcela Valladolid, claims that his new Channel 4 series and book will help to paint a truer picture.
“It was time people met a bit more of me – and correct loads of things that were wrong about me on Wikipedia!” he says.
“Although I’m very protective of my personal life, so bringing cameras along was worrying as well.”
To read more of Paul's interview with go to The Sun's TV Magazine.
NEW! Paul Hollywood: A Baker’s Life Monday 8pm C4
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