‘Great British Bake Off’ Judge Prue Leith Recalls Secret 13-Year Affair With Her ‘Mentor’

Dame Prue Leith is opening up about her 13-year affair with her first husband Rayne Kruger.

During a recent episode of the White Wine Question Time podcast, the Great British Bake Off judge recalled her mindset when dating Kruger while he was married to Nan Munro.

"I never asked Rayne to leave his wife because I was very happy," she told host Kate Thornton. "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 restaurateur added that "nobody ever guessed" that she was having an affair with someone she described as a mentor. 

"We were very discreet about it," Leith shared. "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 nearly 13 years, however, Leith said her thought process began to change. Once she decided that she wanted to have a child of her own, the TV personality reconsidered her future with Kruger. 

"At that point, I thought, I've got to leave Rayne because he's not going to leave Nan," she explained. "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.'"

Still, Kruger ultimately decided to leave his then-wife and is said to have called Leith on the phone to express his desire to have a baby with her.

The pair got married in 1974 and welcomed a son that same year. The couple remained together until Kruger died in 2002. She then wed current husband John Playfair in 2016.

In one final plot twist, Leith said she and her husband remained friends with Munro, whom she called an "amazingly forgiving, extraordinary person."