The Great British Bake-Off judge Prue Leith has spoken in detail about her marriage to her first husband Rayne Kruger, which started out as an affair that lasted 13 years.
Restaurateur and food writer Leith, 83, and Kruger were married from 1974 until his death at the age of 80 in 2002.
However, Kruger, who was chairman of Leith's company, was married to another woman for the first 13 years of their relationship - that woman was Nan Munro, an actress and the best friend of Leith's mother.
Speaking to Kate Thornton on the White Wine Question Time podcast, Leith said, "I never asked Rayne to leave his wife because I was very happy.
"I was building my business, I had none of the duties of a wife, and all of the pleasures of somebody who loved me. So I wasn't pressing for marriage.
"We did have 13 secret years and nobody ever guessed because we were very discreet about it."
She continued, "But it was easier in a way because he was a family friend, chairman of my company, and he'd helped me enormously and everyone knew that we were great friends and he was my sort of mentor, because he was 20 years older than me.
"I mean, we didn't go out for dinner or anything that would create any suspicion."
She also told Thornton about ending the relationship when she was aged 34, when the strong desire to have children "suddenly hit" her and she knew she had to break away from Kruger.
She said, "I ran away with someone who said he was in love with me. We disappeared together to Austria, Egypt..."
That relationship did not work out long-term.
Eventually, Kruger left his wife to be with Leith and the pair had two children together during their 28-year marriage. Their son, Danny Kruger, is a Conservative MP in the UK.
Leith told Thornton that Kruger's former wife forgave them for having the affair, and would visit them often and stay with them in the countryside, as often as every second weekend: "She was amazingly forgiving and an extraordinary woman."
After Kruger's death, Leith went on to meet her second husband when she was 76. He is retired English fashion designer John Playfair, and the pair married in 2016.
