'Paul has an ego the size of Neptune. Nigella will turn it all around': Inside Nigella Lawson's shock Bake Off 'move', the 'significant' salary she's set to be offered and why it could spell trouble for Paul Hollywood

One can almost imagine the high-level conversations that have been going on at Channel 4 about who might take over from Prue Leith, who this week announced she’s stepping down as a judge on The Great British Bake Off.

What ingredients would make the perfect replacement? Female, ideally – to balance out co-judge Paul Hollywood’s macho posing.

Familiar and comforting to viewers, certainly – one doesn’t watch Bake Off to be anything but reassured by life.

Being British, too, would be perfect – following in the footsteps of Prue, who although born in Cape Town has become a British institution, and the genteel Mary Berry before her.

There’s one candidate who has all this – along with a dollop of pure unadulterated sexiness that puts ladies’ man Paul Hollywood in the shade.

Yes, Nigella Lawson, the original domestic goddess, hailed for putting the sauce and spice into cooking, is reportedly on the cusp of returning to mainstream British TV, six years after her last BBC series.

Sources say her salary for the role would be ‘significant’ and that Channel 4 are ‘beyond excited’ at the prospect of luring the 66-year-old to the baking tent.

Because the reality is that coquettish Nigella could be the sultry shot in the arm Bake Off so desperately needs.

Channel 4 bosses believe her purring innuendoes, finger-licking and ‘come hither’ gaze – combined with her baking know-how – are the perfect combination to boost their falling ratings.

A television insider tells me: ‘It all felt a little lacklustre and like it needed a boost. There was every chance the ratings would get worse this year, so they needed to find a way to give it a bit of a zhuzh, a bit of a make-over.

‘Someone needs to save the show and keep those ratings up. Viewers need something new.’

There’s one potential fly in the ointment: how will the king of innuendo, Paul Hollywood, cope with such a seismic change in personnel?

On the plus side, Nigella’s arrival will certainly bring the opportunity for him to spark off her wit and sex appeal.

Paul is, to put it plainly, known to like women who are easy on the eye and Nigella is certainly that.

But Paul – turning 60 in March – has been used to having far older sidekicks: Mary Berry is now 90, and Prue, 85. He has always dominated the show with his persona – the ‘judge to impress’.

Indeed, those who know him suggest he might not be over the moon at sharing the show’s stage with such a popular co-presenter. Because if Nigella does sign on the dotted line, she will be the show’s biggest star, no question.

‘Paul has got an ego the size of Neptune,’ says an associate of his. ‘He absolutely loves himself and revels in being top dog on Bake Off. Mary and Prue have been happy for him to stand out and make all the jokes.

‘He pretends he doesn’t like the attention or the Press, but really he does. But if Nigella arrives, that could all very well change. She’s a star, everyone loves her, she’s beautiful and she is very, very funny.’

Indeed, Paul’s famous ‘soggy bottom’ phrase looks set to be blown out of the water by mother-of-two Nigella.

The term – coined by Paul and Mary in 2010 to describe an undercooked base of a pie or a filling which is too moist – will be tame based on Nigella’s past form.

Once the deputy literary editor of the Sunday Times before she became a foodie, Oxford-educated Nigella combines a fierce intellect with a wicked – some might say filthy – sense of humour.

Take her description of custard, which, she said, should be ‘firm but not immobile... When you press it with your fingers, it should have a little wobble still within. Soft, warm and voluptuous – like an 18th-century courtesan’s inner thigh.’

‘Nigella will turn the show around,’ says an insider. ‘She will have the viewers in stitches.’

She’s much more than a kind of ‘Carry on Baking’ host though. Forensic in her attention to detail, her recipes are thorough, clear and lively. And on one detail she has always been emphatic: she is a cook, not a chef.

Indeed, in 2014, she told how she thought she would be a failure if she went on Bake Off, saying: ‘I don’t even think I’d pass the audition. I love baking, and I bake a lot... I love what I do bake, but just the words “uniformity of size and shape” make me quake.’

So far, Nigella’s spokesman has refused to comment on her joining Bake Off but, tellingly, also made no denial. Channel 4 also refused to deny she was joining, while the show’s producers, Love Productions, similarly declined to say the star was not signing, but did issue a statement to say that Prue’s replacement would be announced in ‘due course’.

While Prue has made it clear that at 85 it’s time to step back a bit, why is now the time to step forward for Nigella?

There’s a sense among her circle that she has finally recovered from her annus horribilis in 2013, which began when her then husband, art dealer Charles Saatchi, was seen with his hands around her throat outside Mayfair restaurant Scott’s. Saatchi – whom Nigella married in 2003, two years after the death of her first husband – received a caution for the assault and the pair later split.

More upset was to come during the fraud trial of two sisters, Francesca and Elisabetta Grillo, who worked as personal assistants for Nigella and Charles.

During the trial, they devastatingly claimed Nigella allowed them to spend £685,000 on company credit cards to cover up her cocaine use. They were eventually found not guilty.

Nigella told the court she had taken cocaine a handful of times but denied having a drug problem. She said she was ‘not proud’ but would rather be ‘honest and ashamed’ about what she has done, than lie about it.

After that, her UK television appearances dwindled. She appeared on The Taste in the US, and then signed to Masterchef Australia as a guest judge in 2016, for which she did three series.

Her last appearance in a UK TV series was Nigella’s Cook, Eat, Repeat on BBC Two in 2020. Since then she has again judged on Masterchef Australia and delivered a few Christmas specials.

Television sources suggest Nigella ‘now thinks it might be time’ to return to our British screens, as she thinks Bake Off is ‘an amazing opportunity’.

As for matters of the heart, Nigella hasn’t confirmed another relationship since Saatchi.

At least if she joins the Bake Off team, she may at least enjoy Paul Hollywood’s flirtatious winks – while matching some of his saucy quips with plenty of her own.