Prue Leith has admitted part of her worried she would see less of her adopted daughter if she found her birth mother.
The 80-year-old chef – who has Daniel, 45, and Li-Da, 45, with late husband Rayne Kruger – had a moment of concern when she thought her daughter had tracked down a woman in Cambodia, Hong Soth, who could have been Li-Da’s birth mother, but she was eventually ruled out after DNA testing.
Prue told The Guardian newspaper: "I remember desperately hoping she was Li-Da’s mother, because I knew how important it was for Li-Da to find her.
"But part of me thought, ‘Oh God, it’s not just Hong Soth, she has a whole family. I’ve had Li-Da for 45 years. Am I prepared for her to focus on the Cambodian side of her family, and see much less of her?’ "
‘The Great British Bake Off’ judge adopted Li-Da at the age of one before the Khmer Rouge attacked the city of Phnom Penh, killing one-quarter of Cambodia’s population in just four years.
Li-Da first travelled to Cambodia in search of her birth parents when she was 27, but failed to find anything leading to them.
She decided to try again for the documentary ‘Prue Leith: Journey With My Daughter’ after adopting a two-year-old boy.
The filmmaker recalled: "I literally had to fill in this form with every address I’d ever lived at and the dates I left and why. And I suddenly realised that, actually, all those details really matter to me. They’ve always mattered. I wanted to be able to fill in the gaps of my own history for my son."
Prue has always supported her daughter’s efforts to find her birth parents, and Li-Da is grateful her mother is understanding as she remembered a touching moment before the first time she went in search of her parents.
She said to her mother: "You said the most amazing thing to me. Before I first went to Cambodia you said, ‘I support you 100 per cent trying to find your birth parents, but just know that if you never come back, I am so privileged to have spent 27 years of your life with you.’ "
Prue Leith worried she would see less of daughter if she tracked down birth mother
