Aug. 12, 2026, 8:55 p.m. ET
Former “Great British Baking Show” judge Prue Leith is recalling a recent “migraine attack” that landed her in emergency care.
The 86-year-old reflected on the medical episode, which occurred during a getaway in Yorkshire, England, in the September issue of The Oldie Magazine, out Aug. 14.
In an excerpt published Aug. 12 by The Sun, Leith, who has experienced migraines since she was 9 years old, said the episode began with a “familiar path,” including partial vision loss followed by flickering lights. But her husband, fashion designer John Playfair, became alarmed when she began struggling to speak.
“My incomprehensible jumble of disconnected words convinced John I was having a stroke,” Leith said. “I tried to tell him it was just a migraine, but I couldn’t string two words together.”
Playfair called her doctor, who ran through a series of checks for other signs of a stroke. Leith said she was able to raise her arms and make a fist and showed no signs of facial drooping or pain.
“In spite of my answers, she ordered an ambulance to take me to [the hospital],” Leith recalled.
Paramedics and hospital staff repeated the same checks before a doctor examined her following a six-hour wait, she said.
Leith said she had “recovered coherent speech” by the time a doctor examined her, but despite her insistence that she was experiencing a migraine, not a stroke, the doctor ordered a CT scan as a precaution.
“I knew all along that all I had was a migraine,” Leith explained. “But since the speech problem is a classic symptom of a stroke, and my extreme old age being a time when mini-strokes are common, everyone was determined to be safe not sorry.”
Stroke symptoms can come on suddenly and may include numbness or weakness on one side of the body, trouble speaking or understanding others, vision problems, difficulty walking, and a severe headache with no known cause, according to The Stroke Foundation.
Leith, who experienced her first migraine as a child, recalled that the episode left her speech similarly scrambled.
“When I had my first attack, I was trying to tell my mother I wanted to be sick, but it came out ‘I want fish.'”
Leith said she has since learned how to lessen the effects of a migraine by taking three medications: paracetamol, ibuprofen and sumatriptan.
“If I don’t swiftly swallow one of my migraine ‘bombs’… a crashing headache will follow,” she said.
Leith announced in January that she was stepping down from “The Great British Baking Show.” The chef and Michelin-star winner joined the competition as a judge alongside Paul Hollywood in 2017, replacing original judge Mary Berry, and judged more than 400 challenges during her tenure.
