Dame Prue Leith recently made a pretty candid confession about parenting her two children, admitting that she didn’t think she was a “very good mother”.
Prue moved to London in 1960 to attend the Cordon Bleu Cookery School, leaving her own mother Peggy Inglis back at home in South Africa, where she was born.
In her 85 years, Leith has achieved a lot, including raising her two children at her Cotswolds home. However, she recently reflected that she doesn’t think she did a very good job of it.
Prue is back on screen this weekend with her Cotswolds Kitchen show (March 22). It comes after she recently stepped aside from her Great Celebrity Bake Off judging duties. Her replacement is Lady Caroline Waldegrave, who was “completely terrified” of taking over.
Prue Leith ‘wasn’t a very good mother’ to her two children
In an interview with The Guardian in 2024, Prue Leith reflected on her 85 years, her stage show, her family life and her children.
“I wasn’t a very good mother,” she said. “Always busy, but it’s about love really, isn’t it? If you love them and they love you, that’s the only important thing.”
She has one biological son, Danny Kruger, whom she had with her late husband Rayne. Danny was a speechwriter and adviser to David Cameron, and currently serves as the Conservative MP for East Wiltshire.
If you love them and they love you, that’s the only important thing.
He’s been in post since 2019, and Shadow Minister for Work and Pensions since November 2024.
Prue’s other child is daughter Li-Da, whom she and Rayne adopted from Cambodia.
Born in 1975, Li-Da Kruger is a filmmaker. Her parents were victims of the Khmer Rouge regime, which killed more than a million Cambodians during the second half of the 1970s.
Li-Da admits her childhood was ‘wonderful’
Prue Leith’s daughter Li-Da, now approaching 50, said her upbringing was “really wonderful”.
As a child, she once told MailOnline, she had “everything she wanted”. Even foods considered extraordinarily normal, despite her mother’s extraordinary position in the culinary world.
“People always asked what did we eat? I do remember we had like everyone else, fish fingers and baked beans, and that disgusting frozen fish in parsley sauce.”
Prue’s late husband was strict when raising Li-Da and Danny
Childhood may have been idyllic, but it was strict, especially as far as Li-Da’s father was concerned.
“Meal times were a certain time every day, we went to bed ridiculously early, we had to go and have sleeps in the afternoon. We had rules my father was very regimented but that’s not a bad thing, punctuality is important.”
Li-Da was protective of her mum when Bake Off catapulted her to national prominence. She used to urge her not to say certain things, so as to avoid controversy.
She is also fiercely pro-adoption, and remains close to her adoptive mother.
Prue once said on Katie Piper’s Extraordinary People podcast that she has “always been really close to Li-Da, oddly enough closer to Li-Da than I am I think to my son, although I adore him and love him just as much, but I don’t see so much of him.”
Prue Leith’s Cotswolds Kitchen is on ITV1 Saturday March 22 at 11.45am.
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