Mary Berry

Mary Berry says she was never asked to go with Bake Off to C4

Celebrity cook says she didn’t have a meeting with broadcaster but had already decided to stay loyal to BBC

Mary Berry
Berry said the advantages of going to C4 were ‘suggested’ to her. Photograph: Radio Times/PA

Mary Berry has said she was not formally offered the chance to stay with The Great British Bake Off when it moved from the BBC to Channel 4 last year.

Restaurateur and writer Prue Leith is expected to take Berry’s role as a judge on the new-look show, which is due to air later this year, and has been described as a “like for like” replacement designed to smooth the transition for viewers.

However, Berry said she had not even had a meeting to discuss joining the new show, and had instead “avoided being asked” to stay on alongside fellow judge Paul Hollywood, who is reportedly being paid £1.2m over three years.

“I was never asked to go,” Berry told the Radio Times. “Well, I avoided being asked. It was suggested what would happen if I did go to Channel 4; what I would get, the advantages. But I didn’t ever have a meeting with them. I’d made up my mind. To me it’s an honour to be on the BBC. I was brought up on it.”

Hollywood is the only member of the original presenting lineup to move with Bake Off following Love Productions’ £75m three-year deal to take the show to Channel 4. He announced he would stay with the show little more than an hour after Berry said she had decided to stay with the BBC. Presenters Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins had already said they would not “go with the dough” to the commercial channel, which has been criticised for failing to secure the presenting team before signing the deal.

Berry, a celebrated food writer and presenter, said “no one was more surprised than me” at the news Bake Off was moving channels and she decided to stay out of a loyalty to the BBC that stemmed from her experience as a child in Bath listening to the radio during the blitz.

“Everybody went silent when it came on,” she said. “We followed the war all the way with the BBC.”

However, she said she felt no ill will towards Hollywood for making the jump. “Paul and I had our differences about what was important to us but he is a brilliant bread maker and I admired him a lot.”

Since losing Bake Off, the BBC has announced two shows fronted by Berry – Mary Berry’s Everyday on BBC2 and BBC1’s Mary Berry’s Secrets from Britain’s Great Houses.