Mel Giedroyc worried Bake Off was 'career suicide' after bankruptcy fears

26 August 2023 , 19:28

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Mel Giedroyc worried Bake Off was 'career suicide' after bankruptcy fears (Image: Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)

Mel Giedroyc has admitted that she feared hosting The Great British Bake Off would be 'career suicide', after spending the 'whole first season' convinced it would be a total flop.

The British comedian and Sue Perkins were cast on the Channel 4 series when it first premiered in 2010, after being approached by its creator, Anna Beattie, to co-present the show. But before the baking competition became a massive hit with audiences, Mel had admittedly little faith in its future.

In a new interview, the 55-year-old recalled that she and Sue were worried that Bake Off – which premiered on BBC Two on 17 August 2010 – had the potential to destroy their reputations in showbiz. "I thought it would be career suicide," she said, before adding, "Sue and I spent the whole first series saying, “This is a disaster. What have we done?” In a previous interview, Mel explained that she worried that the premise of the show lacked entertainment value.

Sue and Mel with Bake Off judges Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry (BBC/Love Productions/Mark Bourdillon)

Mel Giedroyc has revealed she feared Bake Off would be 'career suicide' (Dave Benett/Getty Images for Women of the Year)

Hoping that it wouldn't receive high ratings, she even reassured her co-host that the show would quickly be forgotten. "I remember phoning Perks [Sue] saying, ‘Don’t worry, mate – no one’s ever going to see this,'" she confessed to The Guardian. "Because we were really scared."

Mel, who left the show in 2016, went on to reveal she thought she'd never work again after the first season of Bake Off aired. "We were thinking, ‘Well, that’s the end of our careers. That was the flattest, twee-est, most boring thing we’ve ever done. Who wants to look at cakes?'"

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She later confessed she had only agreed to do the show for financial reasons, having nearly filed for bankruptcy after borrowing £500,000 to purchase a large home with husband Ben Morris. "In the beginning, all I thought was, 'mortgage, mortgage, mortgage'," the Light Lunch presenter said. "I did it for the money."

In 2016, Mel revealed she had always been sceptical of the show's promise because of the oversaturation of culinary programs on TV. "There was a plethora of food shows on telly, so I just thought… “Really?”" she said, after admitting she was the "voice of doom" ahead of its premiere.

Mel also previously admitted she and and her co-host nearly quit the show on the first day of filming, over concerns it was taking an antagonistic turn. "We’re quite cheesy and homespun and we just want to have a laugh," said Sue. "Who wants to see people crying? I don’t. Especially if you work in television and you know the mechanisms that have been used to make them cry."

Emma Dooney