‘The Great British Baking Show’: Prue Leith Revealed She Had Horrific Hallucinations After Taking LSD in the ’60s

The Great British Baking Show judge Prue Leith is a renowned restaurateur, chef, and businesswoman. Though we see how now as the whip-smart counterpart to Paul Hollywood on the series, she’s certainly lived a full life.

The Chancellor of Queen Margaret University just revealed an intense experience with LSD way back in the 1960s that left her with horrific hallucinations and nightmares up until very recently.

This is how Prue Leith rose to fame

Born in Cape Town, South Africa, Leith moved to London in 1960 to attend the Cordon Bleu Cookery School. When she graduated, she got the clever idea of selling high-end lunches to various businesses in the city. The success of that business allowed her to open her very first restaurant Leith’s, in 1969.

Leith’s was so successful that the chef earned a Michelin Star and she was able to found her own cooking school, Leith’s School of Food and Wine, in 1975. From there she went on to establish the Prue Leith Chef’s Academy in South Africa and write a slew of books including her memoir, Relish.

Judging food certainly isn’t new to Leith. For 10 years, she was a judge on BBC2’s teatime food competition, Great British Menu.

Inside Prue Leith’s net worth and his ‘The Great British Baking Show’ salary

Leith came on board to The Great British Baking Show back in 2017 after long-term host Mary Berry left the series to focus on other things. Her role has only added to her massive net worth.

According to The Mirror, Lieth is worth about $1.2 million and she earns about $250,000 per season for her work on The Great British Baking Show according to The Sun.

Prue Leith revealed she took LSD in the ’60s

The 80-year-old chef is no-nonsense now, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t have her share of fun in her earlier years. Leith recently revealed that she tried LSD in the ’60s and it left her hallucinating for years. She told Leading Britain’s Conversation,

It was the sixties, there were a lot of drugs around. We used to smoke a bit of pot, not all the time and not a lot, but we did. And one day, we did take acid, only once, and I must tell you, it was the most appalling experience I’ve ever had. I had absolute horrific hallucinations. I couldn’t look at [Ray] because he turned into a kind of monster, and my arms, the flesh dripped off them. There was just bones left. It just shows what an extraordinary imagination I must have.

Even after taking the LSD once, the after-effects stayed with Lileth for years,.“I’d have nightmares,” she explained. “And when I woke up, nothing would look like I knew it ought to look. It would be wobbly or strange or growing and sinking and shrinking and expanding. And right until, I suppose, my sixties, I would still sometimes wake up in the night and, I felt like I could see the air, you know?”