Former Great British Bake Off judge Prue Leith has issued a health update after revealing she was rushed to hospital earlier this year. On 12 August, the broadcaster confirmed that she had recently been rushed to A&E.
Describing the incident, Leith said she was on a trip in Yorkshire when a “migraine attack” left her with blurred vision and slurred speech. She was taken to hospital amid fears that she was having a stroke, though this thankfully wasn’t the case.
Writing in her new column for The Oldie, Leith said she was taken to Harrogate Hospital by ambulance and given a precautionary CT scan, which confirmed that she had suffered from a migraine.
Channel 4
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Since details of her article were published, Leith has reassured fans that she is feeling better, with the former judge posting a picture of herself enjoying food in the sunshine to her Instagram stories.
She captioned the post: “For those that have messaged me, I wrote a piece of @theoldiemagazine about my trip to hospital a couple of months ago. I was fine shortly after and I am very much alive and kicking now!”
In January, Leith stepped down from her role as a judge on The Great British Bake Off, with Nigella Lawson set to replace her in the new season. This marked the end of her near-decade-long stint on the Channel 4 series.
At the time, Leith released a statement saying: “Bake Off has been a fabulous part of my life for the last nine years, I have genuinely loved it and I’m sure I’ll miss working with my fellow judge Paul, Alison and Noel and the teams at Love Productions and Channel 4.
Antony Jones//Getty Images
“But now feels like the right time to step back (I’m 86 for goodness sake!), there’s so much I’d like to do, not least spend summers enjoying my garden. Whoever joins the team, I’m sure they’ll love it as much as I have. I feel very lucky to have been part of it.”
Lawson, meanwhile, said of her new role: “I’m uncharacteristically rather lost for words right now! Of course it’s daunting to be following in the footsteps of Prue Leith and Mary Berry before her, great dames both, but I’m also bubbling with excitement…”
The Great British Bake Off will return to Channel 4 later this year.
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Harriet is a freelance news writer specialising in TV and movies at Digital Spy.
A horror enthusiast, she joined Digital Spy after working on her own horror website, reviewing films and focusing largely on feminism in the genre.
In her spare time, Harriet paints and produces mixed-media art. She graduated from the University of Kingston with a BA in fine art, where she specialised in painting. She also has an MA in journalism from Birkbeck University.