Former ‘Great British Bake Off’ contestant Briony Williams has spoken about her decision not to mention her disability on the show.
Briony made it through to the semi-final of this year’s series, and during her time on the show, won praise on Twitter for increasing representation of people with disabilities on screen, even though it wasn’t a subject she ever addressed explicitly.
Explaining why she and Channel 4 consciously chose never to mention what she dubs her “little hand”, Briony told the BBC Ouch podcast: “I specified early on that I didn’t want them to make a big deal out of it because I just wanted to see how people would view it.”
Insisting her disability is “a part of me, not all of me”, she continued: “It’s not that I’m embarrassed about it or ashamed of it in any way. I want to be there on my own merit and I don’t want people to think that I’m getting special treatment.
“It was almost kind of trying to prove that just because you’ve got a disability, you can do just as well as anyone else.”
Briony made it down to the last four contestants, falling at the last hurdle during Patisserie week.
While Rahul Mandal, Ruby Bhogal and Kim-Joy Hewlett went on to compete in this year’s final, it was ultimately Rahul who impressed the judges the most, and went on to succeed last year’s winner Sophie Faldo as the ‘Bake Off’ champion.
It wasn’t an easy road to victory for Rahul, though, who had to overcome an exploding jar disaster before being crowned this year’s champion.