Nadiya Hussain has said that she worried about being seen as the ‘token Muslim’ while she was on The Great British Bake Off.
The winner of the 2015 show admitted that she “struggled” at the beginning of the series as she felt like she was being labelled because of her religion.
“I certainly didn't enter a baking show in the hope of representing anyone,” she told the Radio Times.
“Being a Muslim for me was incidental, but from the day the show was launched, I was 'the 30-year-old Muslim' and that became my identity.”
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Hussain, who is second-generation British Bangladeshi, said that she was “shocked” by the amount of negative comments she received.
“I struggled at the beginning, because I thought: 'Am I the token Muslim?' I'd never, in all my years, been labelled like that,” she said.
"I heard it constantly, 'Oh, she's the Muslim, she's the Muslim'…And I was so shocked by the amount of negative comments I got.”
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Since winning the show, Hussain has gone on to bake for the Queen and front her own cookery shows for the BBC.
Following the success of the Chronicles of Nadiya, Hussain is about to launch Nadiya’s British Food Adventure on July 17.