Nigella Lawson Joins 'The Great British Baking Show' Tent

It’s a good sign that (for once) an exit from The Great British Baking Show tent was planned in advance. That certainly wasn’t the case when the series moved bag and baggage from the BBC to Channel 4, causing Judge Mary Berry and hosts Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc to quit en masse; the subsequent exits of former hosts Sandi Toksvig and Matt Lucas also came with no replacements waiting in the wings. However, in a sign that Prue Leith’s exit from the judging table was planned well in advance, it took less than a week for Love Productions to announce Paul Hollywood’s new co-star in the tent, former Food Network staple Nigella Lawson.

Prue’s exit from the tent was a timely moment of turnover for Baking Show, which has been struggling since exiting the pandemic era. Lucas’ departure came on the heels of one of the show’s most embarrassing episodes of all time; his replacement, Alison Hammond, has been a significant improvement, finally cementing a hosting team with Noel Fielding that is a worthy successor to Sue & Mel.

However, Paul Hollywood has remained the central issue. Prue was hired in 2018 by a team that was looking for someone the U.K. public would accept as a 1:1 replacement for Berry. It did not occur to anyone, until it was far too late, that Berry’s main job had become keeping Paul on a tight behavioral leash in those later seasons, by sheer dint of being more famous than he was. Prue, while a lovely person, had neither the cultural clout nor the interest in doing the same.

Lawson, on the other hand, isn’t just famous in the U.K. The daughter of the late Nigel Lawson, Baron Lawson of Blaby and high-profile Tory MP, she is a certified Oxford-educated blue blood. Her How to Be a Domestic Goddess was a bestseller on both sides of the pond when it debuted in 2000 and led to multiple late-night series on Food Network, where her food innuendos and late-night trips to the fridge to eat leftovers in her dressing gown made quite the impression. She’s famous enough to have been “The British Guest Judge” on multiple seasons of Top Chef, Iron Chef, MasterChef U.S., and MasterChef Australia. She has also been part of the U.K. Eurovision on-air team.

Lawson’s entry into the tent will be the first time since Berry’s exit that Paul will be standing beside someone more famous than he is outside the U.K. It also promises a major shift away from the terrible boy energy of the Hollywood-Fielding-Lucas years. Lawson is unabashedly feminine in her presentation and her energy, which, combined with the team of Hammond and Fielding, will push the show back towards its BBC roots. Most importantly, Lawson is confident in her opinions and willing to argue them, which should make for a far more entertaining dynamic as Paul suddenly discovers he’s no longer the 1000lb gorilla dominating the proceedings.

Nigella will debut in the tent as part of Season 17, expected to debut around September 2026; however, U.S. fans watching on Netflix still have time to say a proper goodbye to Prue, as, due to the 11-month delay in crossing the pond, she’ll be back for The Great British Baking Show: Holidays specials in December.

The Great British Baking Show Seasons 1 through 7 are streaming on the Roku Channel; Seasons 8 through 16 (called Collections 5-13) are available on Netflix. The original Holiday specials and Masterclasses from the show’s first seven seasons are on Roku. Netflix has the Christmas specials from Season 8 onward under the title The Great British Baking Show: Holidays, Seasons 1-8. Everything else Love Productions-related is available on Roku, including all seasons of Celebrity Baking Show, The Great Canadian Baking Show, The Great American Baking Show, The Great British Sewing Bee, and the new seasons of The Great Pottery Throw Down.