How Nigella Lawson Became A National Treasure

Everyone is talking about Nigella Lawson, the 66-year-old food writer and TV chef who made her debut as a judge on last night’s episode of Bake Off. She’s the perfect addition to the beloved baking series – as Channel 4’s Ian Katz describes it, it feels like ‘the marriage of two great British icons: Bake Off and Nigella.’ But what was Nigella’s path to stardom?

Who Is Nigella Lawson?

Born in Wandsworth, London, food was always a big part of Nigella’s life as her mother, Vanessa, owned the famous J. Lyons and Co. catering company (her father, meanwhile, was the Tory MP Nigel Lawson). But it was during her time at Oxford University that Nigella realised she ‘liked feeding people’. She would shop for ingredients at Oxford’s Covered Market before coming back to her student kitchen to whip up batch dishes like French onion soup – often resourcefully nabbing bits and pieces from other housemates’ rooms.

Her first job, though, was in journalism rather than cooking. Aged 23, Nigella began writing book reviews for The Spectator, and she went on to become deputy literary editor of The Sunday Times. But eventually she left to go freelance, allowing her the freedom to focus on writing about her greatest love in life: food. 

In 1998 she published her first cookbook, How To Eat, which was inspired by a disastrous dinner party. ‘I had gone to a dinner party where the host spent the time rushing back to the stove and then could be heard sobbing loudly,’ Lawson told The Guardian. ‘I think that too many people feel that they must strain to produce restaurant food in a domestic kitchen, and I wanted to counter that.’ 

She has always been upfront about the fact she’s not a professional chef, writing in the preface of How To Eat: ‘I am not a chef. I am not even a trained or professional cook. My qualification is as an eater… I have nothing to declare but greed.’ But this relatability only added to her appeal. How To Eat quickly became a bestseller, and she followed it with How To Be A Domestic Goddess – described by Nigella as ‘a book about baking, but not a baking book’.

She became known for her relaxed, no-guilt food ethos, one which shuns rigid measurements and diet culture and celebrates the pleasure of home cooking. ‘I do think the fact that I am a bit of a kitchen klutz, and fit cooking into an already busy life (and I started writing food books when I was a non-food columnist with young children), means that I cook in much the same way as my readers, or viewers,’ she said in an interview. ‘Real cooking, the sort that goes on in homes, does not have to be tricksy or difficult, and I felt it was important to demonstrate that.’

What TV Shows Has Nigella Lawson Been In?

Lawson’s first TV show, Nigella Bites, debuted in 1999 on Channel 4, propelling her into an on-screen star. A string of Nigella content followed: cooking-lifestyle series Nigella in 2005; Nigella Express, which ran from 2007 – 2011; and Nigella’s Cook, Eat, Repeat in 2020, among many others. Alongside this, she has starred as a judge and panellist on a plethora of shows including The Taste (both the American and the British versions), the US version of MasterChef and The Great American Baking Show.

Unapologetically sensuous and endlessly entertaining (her deliberately flamboyant mispronunciation of microwave blew up the internet in 2020), it’s clear she was always born to be on camera. And she’s long had a reputation for food innuendos, making her the perfect candidate for Bake Off. 

Is Nigella Lawson In A Relationship?

Nowadays, Nigella keeps her romantic relationships out of the spotlight, but she lived out her previous marriages in the public eye. She met her first husband, John Diamond, while working at The Sunday Times – and Diamond, then a writer at the newspaper, encouraged Lawson to write about food. Speaking about him in an interview with BBC Radio 2, she said: ‘I was a journalist – not a food journalist, but I did do quite a bit of cooking. As a consequence I cooked for editors quite a bit. [He] said to me, “You always talk about food in this really confident way. You should write about it!” So I did.’ 

The couple married in 1992, and they went on to have two children together, Cosima (now 32) and Bruno (30). Sadly Diamond was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1995, and passed away in 2001. Nigella – by then a familiar face on TV – took two weeks off work, later telling The Telegraph: ‘I’m not a great believer in breaks. I don’t want to be rattling around inside my own head. I did feel I was spiralling into a Kathy Burke character and tried going out, but I prefer it here. Filming keeps me busy. It absorbs me.’

Two years after Diamond’s death, Nigella married businessman and art collector Charles Saatchi – best known for co-founding the advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi, and establishing the Saatchi Gallery in Chelsea, London. However, 10 years after they married Saatchi was photographed with his hands around Nigella’s throat while dining at a restaurant in Mayfair. He dismissed the incident as a ‘playful tiff’, but later accepted a police caution for assault.

Weeks later, Nigella had moved out of their home along with her children, with sources saying seeing the photos of herself in the newspaper was the catalyst for her escape. The pair’s divorce was finalised in July 2013.

It’s thought she’s currently single, and speaking to The Guardian in 2020 Nigella said she was much happier now than she had been during her turbulent relationship. ‘And that really does surprise me, because I didn’t think [happiness] was one of my gifts.’