Celebrity Great British Bake Off viewers expressed concern for Gloria Hunniford at the weekend after host Alison Hammond halted proceedings for a surprise announcement.
Beloved TV presenter Gloria, 85, was taking part in the Stand Up to Cancer special. But, before her final bake could be judged, Alison told the other contestants: “Now before we start the judging we should mention the fact that Gloria is not here. She is not feeling very well but she wanted us to carry on anyway.”
She later added: “Such a shame Gloria wasn’t feeling very well and wasn’t able to tell the story.”
Gloria posted a picture to her 47,600 Instagram account over the weekend to say she held her own on the show and it was “all in aid of a cause very close to my heart” after her daughter, Caron, died of breast cancer in 2004.
She also told the Mirror: “I had a terrible fall at the end of the programme, so I never got to finish it.”
After not being able to film the final scenes due to illness, below we look back at the broadcaster's various health battles over the years, including another fall that resulted in brutal injuries.
Horror fall
Gloria's painful fall during filming for Bake Off isn't the only one she's had in recent years. In 2022, she was forced to miss the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations after a horror fall.
She talked about being “very worried” in hospital after breaking the bone in her eye socket. The popular host spoke to her Loose Women colleagues about how the accident happened at her son’s home after tripping on a rug before landing onto a “hard wooden floor”.
She did not want to share how bad the bruising around her eye was but did reveal a picture of her heavily bruised leg. Before airing it, Jane Moore warned: “To viewers watching this next image is graphic.”
It resulted in gasps from Judi Love and Brenda Edwards before Gloria praised the paramedics. She said: “Thankfully the ambulance was able to bring the skin over, otherwise I would’ve lost a lot of skin.”
Gloria added: “I cracked the bone under my eye... there's a bone around the eye that holds the socket in place. So, as long as the muscle holds it in place I should be ok."
Jane told viewers she “couldn’t believe” what she was seeing after witnessing her pal’s battered face on Facetime.
And Gloria said she avoided going out in public because she did not have anyone to do her makeup. But expressing how worried she was about her health, she said she didn’t even know where she was in the hospital.
She added: “I was very worried about a clot forming in my head.”
Emergency sepsis surgery
The Loose Women star recently discussed another terrifying ordeal that resulted in an urgent hospital trip.
She had multiple medical procedures after getting kidney stones in 2022 and before a second operation to remove a stent, she took a concerning turn.
As she was put under general anaesthesia, she remembered: “The last thing they said before I went to theatre was: 'When I take this stent out you are going to feel so much better.”
However, waking up, she recalled: “But the next thing I knew coming out of the anaesthetic, was a nurse saying to me, 'Don't worry, don't panic but we are having to transfer you by ambulance to a different hospital because we can't get your blood pressure up.’”
She was rushed to Maidstone hospital where kidney sepsis was discovered - but thankfully the infection had not spread elsewhere.
Gloria said she eventually regained “98%” of her vitality after recovering from the health scare, adding: “We all know that stuff will be thrown at you and its how you deal with things.”
Weight loss
Gloria lost her beloved husband Stephen Way in August 2024 before she made a brave return to TV in October of that year.
And addressing concerns about her health and weight loss, she said: “The thing is that, obviously when your partner's ill, like the anxiety and the worry and all of that. Of course I've lost weight because you don't eat properly, you're always thinking of the other person.”
But showing appreciation for her sons, Gloria, who had been married to Stephen for 25 years, added: “But I am fine, thank you very much indeed and my two sons when they come to visit they always watch what I eat.”
Pre-diabetes
Pre-diabetes is when your blood sugars are higher than usual but not high enough to be diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes - instead putting you at a high risk of developing it.
Gloria found out she was a pre-diabetic after an annual blood test in 2013. And she later opened up about how she cured it by overhauling parts of her lifestyle including drastically reducing her sugar intake.
She said: “Inside six weeks, my GP ran another test and said, for my age, I had achieved the best reading. It’s clear to me now that sugar, not fat, is public enemy number one. And low fat just means it’s been replaced by too much sugar.”
She also ditched carbohydrates like bread, pasta and potatoes and modified breakfast to introduce things like eggs or sausages.
In the past, Gloria has also been candid about having raised cholesterol, something which put her at risk of heart disease.
Speaking back in 2013, she said: “I've been aware for five or six years that it was the silent killer. I have an overactive thyroid, so every time I went to see my doctor, he kept banging on, saying, `Your cholesterol is too high'. It was 6.9 and it should be 5, so he was worried about it.”
Gloria has also written in her autobiography about the death of her daughter who was just 41 when she died.
And she addressed how this devastating heartbreak changed her perception about life, saying: “Her death has changed the way I look at life because when something this tragic happens, it takes you to a very different space, you realise how precious life is.
“Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would lose a daughter. She was a fantastic girl and it's still difficult. But it comes to a time when you are dealing with loss, where you have to get back to some normality for the sake of your family.”
