Nadiya Hussain has launched another blistering attack on the BBC after previously claiming she’d been axed due to racism in the ‘broken’ TV industry.
The chef, 41, won The Great British Bake Off in 2015 and went on to host a number of her own shows before being quietly dropped by the broadcaster last year, alleging that her religion as a Muslim was a factor in the Beeb’s decision.
Nadiya has now said that shortly before her axe she’d had ‘difficult conversations’ with bosses in which she raised concerns over the fact that they were more interested in her appearance than the food she was cooking.
She told Radio Times: ‘I’d had really difficult conversations, I was like: “These are the people I don’t want to work with any more. This doesn’t align with me anymore. I need the recipes to be the focus”‘.
‘”I need it to be less about what I’m wearing, the props and the colour of my lipstick. It needs to be about the food” Not long after, my show was cancelled’.
The Daily Mail previously reported that Nadiya had been axed because her star had ‘waned’, her recipes became ‘tired’ and she’d became ‘increasingly hard to work with’.
Nadiya Hussain has launched another blistering attack on the BBC after previously claiming she’d been axed due to racism in the ‘broken’ TV industry
But hitting back at the accusations, she said: ‘Unfortunately, as a woman – and a woman of colour – if you speak up, often it’s considered “being difficult” or “being a nuisance”, whereas I know, from experience, that if I was a man, they’d be like: “Oh, you know what he’s like”‘.
Nadiya went on to claim that had she been ‘less vocal’ or ‘kept her mouth shut’ she may very well still be employed by the BBC.
Elsewhere in the interview, Nadiya revealed that despite finding fame on the Bake Off she can no longer bring herself to watch the show and said the series’ ‘magic had disappeared’.
‘Sometimes it feels like it’s competing with some of the shows on Netflix where it’s bigger and bolder and more outrageous, and I don’t think it needs any of that. It’s a beautiful show, it’s a classic.’
Nadiya previously revealed that she can’t listen to the show’s theme tune as it can trigger an anxiety attack, over a decade after she won.
Despite kickstarting her career when she was crowned champion, she confessed that hearing the song reminds her of the ‘stress’ she felt while competing in the famous tent.
She told The i newspaper: ‘I didn’t realise I was on a journey at the time, I had no idea what was happening.’
She said she had told bosses: ‘”I need the recipes to be the focus. I need it to be less about what I’m wearing, the props and the colour of my lipstick. It needs to be about the food” Not long after, my show was cancelled’
While she described her time on the show as a ‘beautiful rite of passage,’ she added: ‘Watching it back stresses me out because I remember the anxiety I was feeling. I still can’t listen to the theme tun from Bake Off. No I can’t.’
Last month Nadiya revealed she’d working as a teaching assistant following her TV exit, before being forced to quit ‘because it ‘played havoc with her health’.
Just weeks after starting the position she handed in her resignation and made the heartbreaking revelation on her Instagram in an emotional post.
Wiping away tears, she said: ‘Hi guys, giving you a life update that you didn’t ask for but you are going to get anyway.
‘So, as you guys know when the BBC cancelled my show, I was kind of at a crossroads, I wasn’t sure where I was going, what I wanted to do.
‘I had loads of options, I toyed with lots of options, open a business I could do a pop-up restaurant or kitchen, none of which appealed to me at the time.
‘I’m still obviously publishing books, cookbooks which I will always love but I kind of reluctantly, you know I was scared, really scared to apply for jobs.’
Nadiya has also spoke about ‘gaslighting’ in the TV industry and said she felt as a Muslim woman, had not always been supported or allowed to fulfil her potential, saying: ‘I get paid less to do the same job as the white version of me.’
She had an inkling that it was the publication of her Muslim-inspired cookbook Rooza last year that led to brands dropping her, explaining: ‘It was really interesting, because I felt like people had just twigged, “Oh, she’s a Muslim,” and suddenly I wasn’t palatable any more.’
Nadiya, who has frequently spoken out about the ‘whiteness’ of TV and publishing, shared how hard it has been to be the only Muslim woman in a room.
She told The Guardian: ‘People always ask me: “Are we doing better? Has it changed?” It’s broken. This last year has been really important for me to realise that, really accept that, actually, I can’t fix a broken industry.’
After her shows were axed by the BBC, Nadiya has used the opportunity to reflect on what she wants the next 10 years of her life to look like professionally.
Launched into the limelight via a reality TV show, she has come to realise that she was never in control of her career that she felt like a ‘caricature of myself’.
Last year Nadiya published her latest cookbook, Rooza, which was inspired by dishes from across the Muslim world, especially throughout Ramadan and Eid.
She had known since 2024 that Rooza was not going to be attached to a TV series and last year she also found out the BBC would not be serialising her next book, Nadiya’s Quick Comforts, either.
Nadiya had been feeling uncomfortable in the TV industry for a while before her Instagram post last year. She admitted feeling ‘manufactured and comfortable for everyone’, adding: ‘I’d become this palatable version of a Muslim that could be on television, that could write cookbooks.’
While she admitted she has no evidence that Rooza was the reason some brands no longer wanted to work with her, deep down she felt it couldn’t be a coincidence that once she brought out a piece of work that was more centred on being Muslim, she wasn’t as appealing for brands to work with.
Read Nadiya’s full interview in Radio Times out now
Nadiya remarked that while before her cookbooks had been marketed at everybody, this one didn’t feel as inclusive and she believes it made people feel ‘uncomfortable’.
She also said the pressure to be grateful has followed her throughout her career, explaining that she had ‘actively silenced’ herself because everything felt like an opportunity.
Wanting to now be the most authentic version of herself, Nadiya has questioned changes she subconsciously made in order to fit in to the industry.
She shared that she even changed the way she wore her headscarf, wrapping only her hair rather than her hair and neck, because it looked more modern.
After leaving her manager and agent in the summer, Nadiya wants to focus on doing something herself, even if that means working on a smaller scale.
It comes after insiders exclusively shared with the Daily Mail that the decision to axe Nadiya from the BBC came because her star had ‘waned’, her recipes became ‘tired’ and she became ‘increasingly hard to work with’, 11 years after her Bake Off win.
The former Great British Bake Off star claimed this week her religion as a Muslim was a factor in the Beeb’s decision not to renew any of her shows after over a decade.
Nadiya previously told a podcast she still has ‘no idea’ why she was quietly dropped by the BBC in June after ten years on our screens – after failing to receive a ‘definitive reason’ by bosses.
But in a new interview, Nadiya is now adamant her Muslim heritage was to blame, claiming that she is a victim of racism in the ‘broken’ TV industry and that her faith has ‘made people uncomfortable’.
She said: ‘Suddenly I wasn’t the same Nadiya that I was before, because before I was writing cookbooks that were for everybody, and now I wrote this book that didn’t feel inclusive.’
But BBC sources insist Nadiya’s claim her religion was a major factor in her being dropped ‘couldn’t be more wide of the mark’, insisting she enjoyed a ‘long and fruitful’ stint with the broadcaster which came to a ‘natural end’.
The insider said: ‘Nadiya had a decent spell with the Beeb, not many chefs can say they’ve had a decade’s worth of shows on various BBC channels.
‘But the BBC is constantly trying to evolve and bring in new talent regarding their food programming, so it’s simply the right time to focus on new personalities.’
Read Nadiya’s full interview in Radio Times out now
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