Alison Hammond is expected to be named as the new co-host of The Great British Bake Off, succeeding the comedian Matt Lucas, according to reports.
The This Morning presenter would be the first nonwhite host or judge in the flagship programme’s 14-year history – although Ravneet Gill and Liam Charles are co-presenters on Junior Bake Off.
Hammond, who co-hosted the Bafta film awards on BBC One alongside Richard E Grant last month, is to present the Channel 4 programme with comedian Noel Fielding when filming for the new series begins this summer, the Daily Mirror reported.
A source told the newspaper: “Alison is a great choice. She will bring warmth and humour to the tent in spades. We’re laughing just thinking about it.”
Hammond, who grew up in Kingstanding in north Birmingham, is understood to have impressed the programme’s producers with her appearance on the celebrity version for Stand Up 2 Cancer last year.
The television presenter rose to fame in 2002 when she became the second housemate to be evicted from the third series of Big Brother.
She was signed up as a reporter on This Morning and has remained with the ITV daytime show since. Hammond hosts the programme every Friday and during school holidays alongside Dermot O’Leary.
In 2020, Hammond presented an ITV documentary during Black History Month in which she travelled around the UK to learn about key, and often overlooked, figures from black British history, including the British-Jamaican nurse Mary Seacole and Walter Tull, who was the first black soldier in the British army to lead white soldiers into battle.
Hammond has also appeared as a contestant on several other programmes including Celebrity MasterChef in 2006, I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! in 2010 and Strictly Come Dancing in 2014.
Channel 4 was contacted for comment.
