Prue Leith has opened up about the heartbreaking death of her first husband Rayne Kruger(Image: PA)

Bake Off's Prue Leith reveals heartbreaking guilt after death of her first husband

by · Wales Online

Prue Leith has shared her "distraught" and "guilt-ridden" feelings over the death of her first husband, Rayne Kruger.

The Great British Bake Off judge experienced a harrowing time when property developer and author Rayne was admitted to hospital just before Christmas in 2002. Prue described his ordeal as a "horrible time", with one incident where he was "thrashing about" while medical staff struggled to help him breathe.

Despite showing some signs of recovery, being able to sit up in a chair, the situation took a tragic turn. In her memoir I'll Try Anything Once, Prue recounts how she left Rayne in hospital to prepare for Christmas, promising to return later.

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When she arrived back at the hospital that night however, Prue began to suspect the worst. The curtains around Rayne's bed were drawn, and she was intercepted by a nurse as she went towards her husband.

Prue writes: "She turned me around and steered me into a side room. I knew the worst."

Prue Leith was "distraught" when her first husband died(Image: Channel 4)

Medics explained 80-year-old Rayne had died "15 minutes" before Prue arrived. They said they had "done all they could" as two doctors and three nurses fought for 10 minutes to save him.

Prue, set to appear on The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice, expressed her preference that her husband should have "died gently while having a nap", lamenting that she wasn't there at his side. She said: "I was distraught that I'd not been there."

The GBBO judge added:, "I spent maybe 40 minutes, first guilt-ridden, then slowly realising that the perfect death is mostly a fiction, and that it did not matter. I ended up glad I'd not been there. I thought, selfishly, that if I had been, then my last memory of Rayne would be of him in extremis. And that would be hard to bear," reports Birmingham Live.

She reflected on her life with Rayne, alongside whom she parented son Danny Kruger and adopted daughter Li-Da Kruger, mentioning a feeling of "gratitude" for their four decades together. Prue went on to marry her second husband, retired fashion designer John Playfair, in 2016.