Dame Prue Leith has reassured fans she is "alive and kicking" after a suspected stroke turned out to be a severe migraine. The former Great British Bake Off judge, 86, was rushed to Harrogate Hospital after losing her ability to speak, prompting her husband to call an ambulance.
Migraine mistaken for stroke
In a column for The Oldie magazine, Dame Prue explained that the episode began with a migraine attack while staying in Yorkshire. She described the familiar symptoms: losing half her vision, followed by a bright circle of flickering coloured lights. She noted that without taking her migraine medication, a crashing headache would follow.
However, this time her speech deteriorated into an "incomprehensible jumble of disconnected words," which convinced her husband John Playfair that she was having a stroke. Despite her attempts to explain it was only a migraine, she couldn't string two words together.
Hospital visit and recovery
Although she could raise her right arm and her face was not drooping—both standard stroke checks—the emergency operator decided to send an ambulance. She was taken to Harrogate Hospital, where she faced a six-hour wait in A&E. After a CT scan at midnight, she was released at 2am.
Sharing the update on Instagram, Dame Prue wrote: "For those that have messaged me, I wrote a piece of @theoldiemagazine about my trip to hospital a couple of months ago. I was fine shortly after and I am very much alive and kicking now!"
Bake Off departure and first migraine
Dame Prue, who stepped down from Bake Off earlier this year after nearly a decade as a judge, also recalled suffering her first migraine at age nine, when her speech went "bananas" and she suddenly said "I want fish!" She concluded that while she knew all along it was a migraine, the loss of speech—a major stroke symptom—made it better to be "safe than sorry."
