How GBBO Keeps The Show A Secret During Filming
Ever dream about competing on a cooking or baking reality TV show like "The Great British Bake Off?" You may think the hardest part would be perfecting your bakes and wooing the judges, however, what might be even harder happens when the filming stops: You have to keep your involvement in the show, and the winner, a secret from nearly everyone, except your immediate family.
After the Season 6 finale and the reveal that Nadiya Hussain was the winner, Hussain said it was extremely difficult for her three kids, husband, and her to remain quiet. "It has been months of lying and making sure I didn't give it away. It's been such a big secret to keep. I might need therapy to try and fix myself," she told BBC's Chris Evans, according to The Guardian. Then there's Season 5 winner Nancy Birtwhistle, who had a similar experience to Hussain and even had her friends thinking she'd developed a form of OCD because she was always baking whenever they visited her home. "The trouble was I couldn't share my secret with anyone outside the family. I remember fizzing inside, wanting to shout, 'Guess what? I am on Bake Off!' but I couldn't" (per The Guardian).
No phones on set
Keeping the winner of GBBO a secret is bound to be tough as the stakes are high and the rules are strictly enforced. Writing for Insider, Antony Amourdoux, a baker who appeared on Season 9, said that phones were prohibited during filming and the bakers' social media accounts were closely monitored. The contestants weren't allowed to meet each other in public, and when he and a few others violated this policy, they were reprimanded by production. Even the coordination of getting the bakers to the tent was mysterious. "I still remember getting cryptic messages such as 'meet us at 11:15 at this station and person X will come pick you up,'" Amourdoux said.
But things don't always go perfectly. Former judge Mary Berry accidentally slipped the identity of one of the bakers eliminated from the show while being interviewed for a radio program (via The Guardian). "Someone's had a few too many brandy snaps," joked one fan on Twitter.