Sandi Toksvig apparently has yet more to reveal about her departure from the Great British Bake Off.
The QI host fronted the Channel 4 baking show for three seasons, until parting ways with Bake Off in 2020.
Since then, she’s been very candid about everything from her reasons behind stepping down to her motivations for saying yes to the gig in the first place.
In a new interview with The Times published over the weekend, Sandi once again spoke honestly about her time on Bake Off, and what led to her quitting the show.
Referring to the show as “three of the longest years of my life”, Sandi explained: “It’s not for me. I walked away from the biggest paycheque of my life, but that’s fine.
“I’d never watched it. I still haven’t watched it. I didn’t understand it.”
“Cakes are readily available in the shops,” she joked, continuing: “I didn’t enjoy the process. You stand at the end of a long table for hours when Prue [Leith] and Paul [Hollywood] taste everything and we literally didn’t speak or taste anything.
“I used to say, ‘Can we not sit down? I’m not contributing,’ but no.”
Even trying out the bakers’ offerings when filming was over was “not really” a draw for Sandi, who noted: “My thing is cheese.”
Asked about her relationship with her colleagues now, Sandi insisted she and Prue Leith are still “joined at the hip”, although Paul Hollywood is apparently trickier to pin down.
“Not so much,” she explained when asked if she’s still in contact with Paul. “He’s so busy. He drives cars so fast it’s impossible to catch him.”
She had a much shorter answer when asked about whether she has a relationship with former co-host Noel Fielding, saying simply: “No.”
Last month, Noel spoke highly of Sandi in an interview to promote the latest season of Bake Off.
“Sandi, as we know, is a massive brain,” he said. “She went to Cambridge, she’s super-smart, she writes, she does politics, she needs to be stimulated. She never stays anywhere too long, except QI which is the perfect show for her.
“The difference between us is that I’ve always really enjoyed hanging out with the bakers. I befriend them and get them to open up.”
He added that he and Sandi successfully “pulled it off” as successors to Bake Off hosts Mel and Sue, despite the “enormous pressure” in the early days of the show’s Channel 4 era.
Read Sandi Toksvig’s full interview with The Times here.
