'The Great British Bake Off' Judge Prue Leith Reveals Secret 13-Year Affair
The 83-year-old chef and judge eventually married the man, who was previously married to her mother's best friend.
Prue Leith is opening up about some of the more shocking details surrounding her personal life. The 83-year-old chef and judge of The Great British Bake Off revealed that she had a secret 13-year affair with Rayne Kruger, her mentor and the chairman of her company.
At the time, Rayne was married to Nan Munro, an actress and the best friend of Prue's own mother, Margaret Inglis.
"I never asked Rayne to leave his wife because I was very happy," Prue shared in a recent interview on Kate Thornton's White Wine Question Time podcast. "I was building my business. I had none of the duties of a wife, and I had all the pleasures of somebody who loved me. I wasn't pressing for marriage."
The British host said that "nobody ever guessed" that she and Rayne were having an affair at the time, "We were very discreet about it. It was easier, in a way, because he was a family friend and he was the chairman of my company. He'd helped me enormously. Everybody knew that we were great friends and that he was my mentor because he was 20 years older than me."
After 13 years content in their affair, Prue said that things shifted when she turned 34 and decided she wanted to have a child.
"At that point I thought, I've got to leave Rayne because he's not going to leave Nan," Prue shared. "I left him and I left him by the simple expedient of running away with somebody who said he was in love with me, and I thought, 'That'll do.'"
She said that her absence led Rayne to realize that his marriage to Nan only worked because he was also with Prue.
"He left Nan and he rang me up and said, 'Come home. We'll have a baby. I can't live without you,'" Prue recalled.
Prue and Rayne welcomed son Danny in 1974 and got married that same year. They remained married until his death in 2002. They also adopted daughter Li-Da Kruger.
Prue and Rayne remained friends with his wife, Nan, whom Prue called an "amazingly forgiving, extraordinary woman."
Prue later married husband John Playfair in 2016.
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