'Great British Bake Off' Judge Tweets out Winner Before Finale

Whoops! Great British Bake Off Judge Prue Leith says time zones are to blame for her embarrassing [...]

By Anna Rumer

Whoops! Great British Bake Off Judge Prue Leith says time zones are to blame for her embarrassing blunder last month in which she accidentally tweeted out the winner of the baking competition six hours before the finale aired.

On Oct. 31, fans were shocked when the 77-year-old judge tweeted, "No one told me judging a #gbbo final would be so emotional. I wanted them all to win. Bravo [Sophie Faldo]" prior to the finale.

People were pretty ticked that the entire season of build-up was ruined.

Leith said after she realized her gaffe, she was horrified.

"I think that was one of the worst half an hours, that first half an hour when I realized what I had done," she told ITV's "This Morning," per the Guardian.

The judge explained she was in Bhutan and got mixed up about what time zone she was in. She had set a reminder to congratulate Faldo at a certain time, and when she saw it was past that time, panicked and tweeted what she did.

"Then as soon as it went I thought 'oh my God' and I went into a panic mode where I couldn't work my phone and I didn't know how to delete it quickly and I couldn't think," she said . "And in the end I just rang my trusty PA and she said, 'I've already deleted it,' and it was 89 seconds after I had done it and that was too late, it had been retweeted."

Faldo has since said there are "no hard feelings" between her and Leith, but the cook turned novelist still is upset at herself for the mistake.

"The thing that upset me most was I thought this will take attention off the winner, and Sophie had worked for months and months for this moment and the column inches are going to be about my tweet, not about her triumph," she said.

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