Modern Family was a 22-time Emmy-winning sitcom and one of ABC’s most popular shows for over a decade, but as far as Prue Leith is concerned, she has never heard of it.
The Great British Baking Show judge confessed her lack of knowledge about the hit sitcom to one of its stars, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, who recently competed on the celebrity edition of the U.S. spinoff, The Great American Baking Show.
Appearing on Ferguson’s Dinner’s On Me podcast, Leith was asked about whether she felt she had “big shoes to fill” when she replaced Mary Berry as a judge in 2017 after the show moved networks in the U.K.
“Do you know, I didn’t, simply because I had never watched Bake Off,” she said, per Entertainment Weekly, using the show’s U.K. title. “I hadn’t. I watched really very little telly anyway.”
This revelation prompted Ferguson to ask, “Did you know I was on Modern Family?”
Leith admitted, “No.”
Eric McCandless/ABC
Ferguson wasn’t offended, telling the South African-British restaurateur, “I love that… Do you know any of the people that come on the show? You’re like, ‘I don’t know. They’re famous in America?’”
Leith confessed she doesn’t know “anyone who comes on the show,” noting that it’s “too embarrassing” and that she has to have “a little crib sheet and mug you all up before.”
Ferguson, who played Mitchell Pritchett across all 11 seasons of Modern Family between 2009 and 2020, said he could just imagine Leith reading a cheat sheet with his name on it and saying, “I don’t know what Modern Family is.”
Leith laughed and revealed, “I’d never heard of it,” adding in her defense, “I don’t watch very much British television, never mind America.”
Ferguson recently competed on the Celebrity Summer special of The Great American Baking Show alongside Grown-ish star Yara Shahidi, comedian June Diane Raphael, and Too Much actor Andrew Rannells. Leith and Paul Hollywood judged, while Zach Cherry and Casey Wilson hosted.
Even though Leith had no idea who he was, Ferguson said it was “a baker’s dream” to appear on the show. “It was just the best time. I honestly felt like I was in a dream,” she shared. “Because I’ve watched the show so many times where you sit on the floor and watch your bake and like, you know, I was doing all those things and it was a proofing drawer, which I never had to use.”
He added, “It’s also for someone like me who loves to be in the kitchen, it’s such a cook’s dream, or baker’s dream, because you have everything you could possibly want.”