Bake Off's Kim-Joy: 'It's Impossible To Be Positive All The Time, But That's What People See'

The former GBBO contestant on life with social anxiety, tackling trolls and her new book.
Ellis Parrinder

Kim-Joy’s bright bakes and eternally positive persona became her signature during 2018′s Great British Bake Off. With ‘joy’ in her name and a never-faltering smile, you’d be forgiven for thinking life is all rainbows and butterflies for the former contestant. But looks can be deceiving.

“A lot of people say ‘you’re so positive all the time’, but I don’t necessarily see myself as that positive, because things happen and it upsets me and I feel down like everyone does,” she says. “I think it’s impossible to be positive all the time. But that’s what people see.”

When she sees something horrible in the news or something upsets her in her own life, there’ll be a few hours in the day where she will get down about it and start catastrophising. “But what’s good is that I express it. I let myself feel sad and then the next day I feel a bit better. And I’ve got good people around me.”

Joe Maher via Getty Images

Born in Belgium to an English father and Malaysian-Chinese mother, Kim-Joy Hewlett grew up in London and studied in Bristol and then Leeds, where she settled with partner Nabil (who she met at a board-games night). Mental illness has been a through-line, something that’s impacted her family first-hand, she tells me. Nor is she a stranger to mental health issues herself.

The 28-year-old struggles with social anxiety in large groups, and while it’s something that’s eased over time, she says she still gets nagging thoughts that people don’t like her. “One-on-one I feel fine, but it’s always there a little bit – that feeling that other people are judging you, all the time,” she says. “Every time I meet somebody I’m like – how did it go? did I sound ok? – even though I know that I [did], it’s just a thought that people are going to hate me.”

The anxiety was at its worst in school when she stopped talking completely and would have a permanent blank facial expression – in fact, as she tells me this, her smile disappears, her eyes become serious and her face falls into a neutral position. It was only when she’d arrive back from school to the safety of her house and family that she found she could talk again.

Pigfiteroles in mud, anyone?
Ellis Parrinder
Pigfiteroles in mud, anyone?

In sixth form she managed to start greeting people, saying the odd ‘hello’, but still really struggled with groups. “Then I went to university and it was like ‘ok I’m going to be me now’. But I didn’t really know who I was.”

Where words failed her, smiling became a tactic to communicate with others – and it’s something she uses to this day to make herself feel upbeat. “I’ve always smiled a lot since I was younger, I think because I wanted to make people like me – and I feel like my face looks better when I smile. It’s just a habit now. Even on the phone you’ve got to smile, because people can hear it as well.”

Like many a GBBO contestant, Kim-Joy has not shied away in the past from admitting that baking helps make you friends. She previously worked as a mental wellbeing practitioner with a view to one day becoming a clinical psychologist. But after her stint on Bake Off last year, where she made the final alongside winner Rahul Mandal and runner up Ruby Bhogal, she’s now pursuing a very different – less stressful – career path.

Just days before the new Bake Off series starts, the 28-year-old’s first book hits the shelves. Baking With Kim-Joy is a cacophony of colour, filled with cutesie animal designs incorporated into baked goods – she shows you how to make ‘lavender and lemon pandaleines’ (madeleines with panda faces), ‘pigfiteroles in mud’, and a show-stopping ‘whale underwater cake’.

Photography by Ellis Parrinder

The book certainly catches the eye – it’s yellow and purple, with a photo of Kim-Joy in a vibrant red dress and bright make-up, surrounded by artistic bakes and illustrated snails, frogs and bees. “Cute and creative bakes to make you smile,” reads the tagline.

It’s all very Kim-Joy, I tell her. “I wanted it to be colourful, to be bright and happy, so when you open it it makes you feel good,” she replies. “Hopefully people will be drawn to it because you do judge books by their cover.”

As she well knows. If we’re all judged on our looks to some extent, Kim-Joy has experienced this on another level, thanks to the huge success and reach of GBBO, which is now streamable on Netflix and has a growing audience in the US. Just last week she was tagged in a nasty comment about her appearance on social media. “It really upset me. It’s the kind of thing where you know where it’s coming from – they’re not in a good place, so you have that logic – but it doesn’t stop it from hurting because it’s human nature, you want to be liked.”

She was out with friends at the time and realised she was acting weirdly. So she ended up telling her mates what was up. “It helps to tell people,” she says. “I’ve got a good support network and that’s the main thing. If you’ve got a group of people around you who can tell you ‘we love you’, that makes you feel better.”

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