Great Kiwi Bake Off judge Dean ‘I MARRIED MY EX-WIFE!'

The celebrity baker reveals his rollercoaster romance

- Leena Tailor

There’s elements of Kiwi baker Dean Brettschneider’s life that sound like scenes from an unlikely rom-com – from finding love with Danish beauty Vibeke Kring Voltzmann while still married to someone else, to navigating a long-distance relationship and blending families, then divorcing… only to remarry amid a pandemic!

Now, after decades travelling the world while building his empire, the Great Kiwi Bake Off judge is relishing the blissful ending marked by the couple’s second nuptials.

“It’s better this time,” Rangiora-born Dean, 52, tells Woman’s Day from Denmark, where the pair now live. “I’m present and we’re doing things together – all the stuffwe never did that normal couples do. Our love and attraction are rekindled in a stronger way.”

The messy love story starts in Dunedin, where he opened his first bakery at age 25, and where he and his first wife Susan welcomed their son Jason, now 25. The trio relocated to China after Dean was headhunted for a job.

Vibeke was living in the same compound in Shanghai with her husband Soren Voltzmann and their children, Sille, 20, and Mads, 18, and Dean started cycling and playing soccer with Soren before meeting his wife.

“She had that feisty spark and fire in the eye,” he recalls. “The connection was there straight away.”