Prue Leith has spoken of the reaction she got from her family after choosing to reveal details of an affair she had with her mother’s best friend’s husband, who she later went on to marry.
The Great British Bake Off judge has admitted her children were “upset” after she chose to publish details of their 13-year infidelity in her 2012 autobiography Relish.
In her memoir, Prue disclosed that she met her late husband Rayne Kruger while he was married to South African actor Nan Munro, who Rayne had three children with before marrying Prue in 1974.
The affair then became a topic of conversation again earlier this year, after she spoke about it candidly during a podcast appearance.
Reflecting on the attention her admission received, Prue told E! News in a new interview: “It upset my children a lot. They had read it all before and they knew it was just part of the whole story.”
She explained that her family has since gotten “over it”, continuing: “It’s not the end of the world.
“It’s my own fault,” she laughed. “If I go public on something, I can hardly complain if somebody talks about it.
“I think it’s a good piece of writing. It’s the truth and I was trying to write my life, so what I did was correct.”
The TV judge also reiterated her previous explanation of her decision to include the story, saying: “I thought when you’re writing an autobiography, what you should be doing is writing the interesting bits and leaving out the boring bits.
“Nobody’s interested in your achievements. They’re interested in your failures.”
Prue previously told Kate Thornton’s White Wine Question Time podcast of her affair: “I had none of the duties of life and all of the pleasures of somebody who loved me. I wasn’t pressing for marriage.
“We did have 13 secret years and nobody ever guessed because we were discreet,” she said, adding that they would not “go out to dinner or anything that would create any kind of suspicion”.
When the affair did come out and Prue and Rayne went on to marry, his ex-wife Nan went on to forgive the pair, with Prue calling her “an extraordinary woman”.
Prue was married to Rayne from 1974 until his death in 2002, and the couple had two children together, including Tory MP Danny Kruger.
The South African-born star, who moved to the UK at the age of 20, has since remarried, tying the knot to John Playfair in 2016.