Nadiya Hussain has opened up about the candid reason why she believes her BBC show wasn’t recommissioned.
The national broadcaster confirmed last month that they would not be working on another cookery show with the Great British Bake Off star, 40, after a decade on the screen.
The TV personality took to social media to explain that she had always been made to ‘feel grateful’ for the opportunities she received, which added an ‘invisible pressure’ to not voice her frustrations or her desire for more.
In a new interview, she has delved into her thoughts on why her working relationship with the BBC ended and the difficulties she has faced navigating the TV industry as a Bangladeshi Muslim woman.
When asked by Paul Brunson if ‘speaking her truth’ is one of the reasons her show didn’t get commissioned, she explained that she had accepted she was ‘very BBC’ after exploring work at other broadcasters.
She told the We Need to Talk podcast: ‘I suppose it means that they’ve got me exactly where they want me and utterly unbiased. And just they’ve got me where they want me. Neutral. And I am not neutral.
‘I have opinions and I have things to say. They’ll keep you till you’re of no use to them. And I think that’s what happened. I think essentially I got lots of reasons why they couldn’t commission the show.’
Her lack of recommision was given ‘rough reasons’ but nothing ‘definitive’, she shared.
Before adding: ‘My husband and I always spoke about it and he just said, “there’s going to be a point where they’re not going to need you anymore. And the second you don’t fit the box… there’ll be no space for you. And I suppose I don’t fit that space anymore.’
Reflecting on how the new was announced she claims the broadcaster told her to say she chose to no longer do the show to ‘focus on different projects’ which she added was ‘not the truth’ leading her to refusing to post it.
As for what’s next, she is ready to be her ‘unfiltered’ self, adding: ‘I just decided, clean slate. I no longer have an agent. Everyone’s gone, because I want it to start from scratch.
‘As if I had won Bake Off ten years ago, when I had nobody but my husband and myself and my instinct and my gut and what it tells me, it’s been the most freeing thing to know that every decision I make is my own, and nobody gets to filter me.’
Elsewhere in the podcast she opened up about an incident which took place during an appearance on a ‘very big breakfast show’ on TV, although she does not specify which one.
She said the hosts were ‘mocking a recipe out of her book’ and renamed her Chaat in a bag to ‘shat in a bag’ which prompted her to file an official complaint.
‘I found that really distasteful and really hateful. And I said, they need to apologize for that because that was really deeply disrespectful and nothing, nothing, nothing. They refused to apologize,’ she said.
During her career she’s been made to feel like a ‘tick box exercise’, Nadiya shared.
‘[I had to be] a muslim that was relatable, like the People’s Muslim, the people’s person of color, the digestible version of myself,’ the famed baker said.
Reflecting on a time when her proposal to a publisher on a book about parenthood as someone from a ‘ethnic minority background straddling two worlds’ was shot down, she said she was made to feel like her ‘voice didn’t matter’.
Since winning series six of The Great British Bake Off in 2015, the mother-of-three has hosted a while variety of shows including The Chronicles of Nadiya, Nadiya’s Family Favourites, Nadiya’s Everyday Baking and Nadiya’s Cook Once, Eat Twice.
‘I look back [at my career] and I think, oh my goodness, it was all a tick box exercise till they just didn’t need me anymore. Till they just said, actually, unless you’re the version that we want, you don’t get to be the version that’s authentic.
‘And when you decide that you want to be authentic, there’s no room for you. And that’s when I was able to step into my true self.’
A statement from the BBC in June simply read: ‘After several wonderful series, we have made the difficult decision not to commission another cookery show with Nadiya Hussain at the moment.’
Metro has reached out to the BBC for comment.
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