Nadiya Hussain says she was forced to become 'palatable version of a Muslim' as she hits out at 'broken' system
Nadiya Hussain achieved stardom after winning the sixth series of The Great British Bake Off on the BBC, and has since fronted various TV shows, published cookbooks, contributed to The One Show, and been invited to bake a cake for the 90th birthday celebrations for Elizabeth II.
Last year, she launched Rooza: a journey through Islamic cuisine, described by Penguin Books UK as ‘a culinary tribute to Ramadhan and the Muslim holy month.’
Shortly after publication, Hussain took to Instagram to inform fans that the BBC had opted not to commission a show based on Rooza, and that she wouldn’t appear in a promotional programme for her new book, Nadiya’s Quick Comforts, either.
In a statement, the broadcaster said at the time: “After several wonderful series, we have made the difficult decision not to commission another cookery show with Nadiya Hussain at the moment.”
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The GBBO alumna soon left her agent and her manager, and told The Guardian in a newly-published article that this period of her life has been ‘exposing’ yet ‘really enlightening at the same time’.
“I’ve had the opportunity to sit back and look at how I see the next 10 years, hopefully,” she began.
“I suppose, now, it’s about shaping that landscape for myself. It’s been scary, but I’ve also really enjoyed figuring out what it looks like for me. It’s really freeing to be able to just say, what do I want out of this? And I love that,” she claimed.
In the interview, the 41-year-old admitted she realised she no longer wanted to ‘answer’ to anyone, and that she’d started to feel almost like a ‘caricature’ of herself.
“I’d become a version of myself that was manufactured and comfortable for everybody,” she confessed.
“I’d become this palatable version of a Muslim that could be on television, that could write cookbooks. I’d become this really comfortable version of myself that was easy to digest.”
She went on to say how ‘difficult’ it could be to be the only non-white person in a room, claiming that the industry is ‘broken’.
“This last year has been really important for me to realise that, really accept that, actually, I can’t fix a broken industry,” the mum-of-three admitted.
The British television staple said that after Rooza was published, people ‘twigged’ and were almost reminded that she was a Muslim woman.
“Suddenly I wasn’t palatable any more,” she alleged. “Suddenly I wasn’t the same Nadiya that I was before, because before I was writing cookbooks that were for everybody, and now I wrote this book that didn’t feel inclusive.”
Hussain claimed that faith and culture are a ‘big part’ of who she is and that she’d previously allowed TV and the publishing industry to categorise her in a neat box.
She claimed by allowing people to mould her, she helped ‘protect an industry that hadn’t always protected her’.
“What I’d done was I just softened my edges enough to fit in. Even things like I changed the way I wore my headscarf because it felt more modern to wear it a different way.”
She added that she prefers to cover her neck as well as wrap her hair, alleging that ‘this makes [her] somehow look more Muslim’.
Nadiya’s Quick Comforts and Rooza by Nadiya Hussain and Rooza are available to purchase now.
Topics: Celebrity, UK Food, TV and Film
Ella Scott