Dame Prue Leith struggled to move in with John Playfair because they both had "an enormous amount of stuff" by the time they met.
Dame Prue Leith struggled to move in with John Playfair because of logistics
The 84-year-old chef was initially married to Rayne Kruger from 1974 until his death in 2002 and has son Danny, 49, as well as adoptive daughter Li-Da, 48, with him but struck up a relationship with retired English fashion designer John, 83, in 2011.
The pair eventually tied the knot in 2016 but Prue insisted that the "misconception" that they lived apart stemmed from the fact that they both kept putting off the idea of actually buying property together because they had both accumulated so many belongings by that stage in life.
Speaking on ITV's 'Good Morning Britain', she said: "There's this wonderful misconception that we lived apart. If you're our age when you meet, you both have a house and an enormous amount of stuff. I had a nine-bedroom house, a huge great house stuffed full of my children's stuff and John had a huge house.
"We could never get around to combining the two...you know what it's like moving, so we never even did it.
"Gradually, we thought it would be nice to build a house of our own and if we started with a new house, then we would both sell our own house. It's very modern and it's in the middle of the Cotswolds."
Meanwhile, 'The Great British Bake Off' judge is now fronting her own 10-part series 'Prue Leith’s Cotswold Kitchen' - which will air on Saturday mornings on ITV1 - that has been filmed from her home and joked that her "main concern" with the whole thing is that because her husband also features on the show, he might take over in popularity.
She said: "I think a bit of tension [in the kitchen] is good...but my main concern is that John is so good at this that I could be bumped in our family. I am supposed to be the telly star around here! And he is rather funny!"
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