Great British Bake Off winner Peter Sawkins denies coming out: I do not identify as LGBTQ+

Former Great British Bake Off champion Peter Sawkins has denied identifying as LGBTQ+.

The accounting student from Edinburgh - who won the baking competition in 2020 - recently shared a video on his Instagram account of him holding hands with a man, which some media outlets interpreted as him coming out as gay during Pride month.

But Sawkins wrote in a statement on his Instagram stories: "Clarification of a recent reel. I am trying to address this with sensitivity and kindness.

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"I recently posted a reel from my holiday. Some news sites and comments celebrated this as me coming out, and I can appreciate how this has happened.

"However, this is not the case. I do not identify as LGBTQ+.

"I fully support the LGBTQ+ community and will try to be an ally as best as I can. Representation within the LGBTQ+ community across society is incredibly important.

"This is why I felt the need to clarify in this story. Written with love, Peter."

Sawkins was 20 when he became the first ever Scottish winner of Bake Off in 2020, as well as the youngest champion of the adult series of the competition.

He said at the time: “I can’t quite believe that I’m here. I can’t quite believe that I made it on the show. I can’t quite believe the show happened.

“This is going to be a really huge chapter in my life, and what a way for it to end.”

He went on to publish his first cookbook Peter Bakes in October 2021.

The video he posted on his Instagram account of himself on holiday in Morocco is set to the soundtrack of Stephen Sanchez's Until I Found You and ends with him walking hand-in-hand with an unidentified male.

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Sawkins captioned the reel: "Collect memories not things. You only live once, and when you do it right, once it enough. Live for the moments you can’t put into words. If not now, when?"

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