Alison Hammond tells co-stars how much weight she put on during GBBO filming

26 September 2023 , 13:12

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Alison Hammond has been opening up about some of the unwanted side effects that come with filming The Great British Bake Off.

The This Morning fan-favourite is the latest recruit of the Channel 4 programme joining as a host alongside Noel Fielding after Matt Lucas quit earlier this year.

Despite having a ball during filming, Alison says she got a little too taste-happy in the early weeks of the competition. Judge Paul Hollywood, who has been with the show since it started on the BBC told Alison that was a 'huge mistake.'

"You did make a mistake in the first week," he told Alison during a joint interview in Bella Magazine. "Where you went round and ate everything. You said 'I'm never doing that again!"

Alison joked she had 'eaten everything' the amateur bakers had made.After indulging in the array of sweet treats on display in the famous tent she said: "I've put on a stone! This series, I've put on a stone!

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"I'm literally going to go running tomorrow," She told Bella Magazine. Alison wasn't the only one to put on weight, as her co-host Noel Fielding admitted he and judge Sandi Toksvig both put on a stone too.

Alison joins the judges on the Great British Bake Off (Love Productions)

Discussing her first few days on set, presenter admitted she was a little overwhelmed with her co-stars.

"There was a moment where I was a little bit star struck. I looked at Paul, I looked at Prue then I looked at Noel, and I thought, 'What am I doing here?'. [Paul] was like, 'Oh I could so pick you up', I was like go on then. I jumped on him, wrapped my legs around him, and both of us just toppled over!"

Speaking of welcoming Alison into the line-up, Prue said she's "energised the show", telling the magazine: "It's amazing. I mean, she's such a life-enhancing ball of fire – she's fantastic. And she is always the same on-set, off-set, when she's in the make-up chair…

"She's just herself. She can't be anything else, but the loud, happy Brummie who loves people. She’s just hilarious, but also so sympathetic and sweet. The bakers all adore her and so do we." Noel added: "I feel like Alison's energy is really infectious and she’s got a big personality in turn. And it’s quite a joyful, sort of fun zone that she creates. And I feel like we could use that actually, the show needed a little pick-me-up."

It was also revealed that the series almost collapsed into chaos after Alison made a mistake on social media. After becoming "emotional" watching some of the bakers leave the tent, Alison began following her favourites on Instagram.

"I don’t know the protocol," she told Bella. "So I started following some of them on Instagram, and then very quickly the Bake Off team was like, 'Alison, don’t follow them, because the press will be bringing it up to you as to who you’re following'.

"I was like, 'I don’t know! I didn’t know who to follow and who not to follow!' So I had to send a message out saying, 'Listen, I’m not unfollowing people I don’t like any more, I’m just not allowed until the series goes out, and then I’ll follow you back'. I’m like, explaining why I was unfollowing them. It was horrible actually. I think I actually got very emotional for one baker. I was saying, 'What’s going on, I’m crying here?' I was so upset."

Working with Prue and Paul, Alison's addition seemed to go down well with fans who can't wait to watch the Brummie TV make her debut. It's not only viewers that wanted to see Hammond in the tent again, Alison herself admitted chasing producers to give their verdict.

But after being told she landed her dream job, the telly legend says she was "really chuffed". "I actually didn’t realise how much I wanted it until I had to audition with Noel – I had to do a screen test with him. And I also had to go and do interviews with some random general public and then they took absolutely ages to tell me that I got the job."