Inside Paul Hollywood's Rocky Love Life

He may be a master baker, but the GBBO judge doesn’t seem to have found the recipe for a lasting relationship

- Rebecca Calderwood

Holiday romance

Paul was head baker at a hotel in Cyprus when he met first wife Alex. The couple made it official just two years later, in 1998. She admitted, ‘We fell in love very quickly. Two weeks was all it took — we both knew.’

Baby on board '

After three years together, in October 2001, Paul and Alex welcomed their son, Joshua, now 17. Despite Paul’s growing success alongside Mary Berry on The Great British Bake Off, Alex insisted the family was stronger than ever, revealing that Paul was ‘the loveliest of husbands and a brilliant father’.

American affair

The couple’s marriage hit a rocky spell after Paul flew Stateside to shoot an American version of GBBO in February 2013. Paul hit it off with fellow judge Marcela Valladolid, whom he later began to date. After returning to the UK, he moved out of the family home and left Alex heartbroken, only to change his mind months later and beg her to take him back. He said at the time, ‘I made a huge mistake, and at the moment Alex and myself are working things through together.’

Contestant controversy