When Nadiya Hussain won the 2015 season of The Great British Bake Off, she won much more than the show’s standard prize of an engraved glass cake stand and a bouquet of flowers.
Over the next decade, Hussain went on to become one of the BBC’s biggest breakout stars with cooking and food shows, including Nadiya’s British Food Adventure, Nadiya’s Everyday Baking and Nadiya’s Everyday Spices earning her a devoted fanbase.
Last year, however, the broadcaster cancelled the slate of shows, with Hussain revealing that she had not been given a “definitive” reason.
In a new interview with Radio Times, however, she shed light on potential reasons behind the axing of her programmes.
“It’s sad because I love showing people how to make recipes and how excited I am about them,” Hussain said, admitting that “near the end” of her working relationship with the BBC, she had voiced concerns about her programmes.
“I’d had really difficult conversations,” she says. “I was like, ‘These are the people I don’t want to work with any more. This doesn’t align with me any more.
“I need the recipes to be the focus. I need it to be less about what I’m wearing, the props and the colour of my lipstick. It needs to be about the food’. Not long after, my show was cancelled.”
She continued: “If I was less vocal and I’d shut my mouth and did as I was told all the time, there’s a likelihood that I would have jobs that I don’t have now.
“Unfortunately, as a woman – and a woman of colour – if you speak up, often it’s considered ‘being difficult’ or ‘being a nuisance’, whereas I know, from experience, that if I was a man, they’d be like, ‘Oh, you know what he’s like’.”
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A BBC spokesperson told The Independent: “After many wonderful series, we made the difficult decision not to commission another cookery show with Nadiya Hussain for the time being. We remain open to working with her in the future.”
Hussain has since taken a step back from presenting despite fielding offers from other broadcasters, telling the publication: “Unless it’s with purpose, I’m not doing it. I’ve been doing this for 11 years, and I very rarely see a diverse set or meeting.
“Often, people of colour and from ethnic minority backgrounds don’t have that person who works in television, so they don’t get a little step stool into the industry. I’d like to be that step stool.”
Hussain said she has entertained the idea of establishing her own production company in order to redress the problems she sees in the industry.
Last month, Hussain revealed she was working as a primary school teaching assistant in a major career change.
She has since had to step away because of a weakened immune system due to fibromyalgia and gastric atrophy.
“I had to hand in my notice because working with children, I was constantly ill,” said Hussain, adding that next she is planning to train in special needs education, which would involve teaching smaller groups. She has started learning sign language.
Speaking to The Independent earlier this month, Hussain noted that it is “really hard to pick a few” Muslim female chefs on TV. “Because we don’t have longevity. I can’t even find another Muslim woman to equate myself to, or stand shoulder-to-shoulder with.
“It’s hard not to feel like a token, because it’s almost like we’re allowed a certain amount of space, until that space no longer exists for us – when the box has been ticked,” she said. “There’s this kind of show of, ‘Look, we’re inclusive’, until we’re not.”
At the time her shows were cancelled, Hussain suggested that it was because she no longer fit the corporation’s “very neat box”.
“I can’t see why there’s a reason why my show wasn’t recommissioned,” she told the We Need to Talk podcast, adding that she believes she simply “no longer fit that space anymore”.
“To be fair, I’m not comfortable in boxes anyway,” she said. “I prefer a glass ceiling to smash through, thank you very much. But I suppose there’s no space for me, and I’m kind of alright with that.”
A spokesperson for the broadcaster noted that Hussain is still “a much-valued part of the BBC family”.