Okay but did Nigella pronounce microwave like that on purpose? Here’s why she said it

Nigella Lawson cannot say the word microwave, and now she’s spoken out to confirm why she pronounces it so strangely.

In her show Cook, Eat, Repeat, she picks up some milk to use in a recipe, which she says she’s “warmed in the meecrowavvey”. Microwavé? Mikro Whave??? Anyway, when people first discovered Nigella’s, uhhh, unique pronunciation of the word, everyone went slightly into meltdown. Watch it for yourself:

This morning, a spokesperson for Nigella issued a statement, which was read out by Greg James on his Radio 1 show. They said Nigella pronounced it like that because it’s a “family joke”, saying: “In a nutshell, it’s how Nigella refers to the microwave at home. It’s a bit of a family joke.”

Yesterday, Nigella said that is actually how she pronounces microwave, but confirmed she doesn’t really think microwave is meant to be said like that.

Someone tweeted: “Am I the only one who thought @Nigella_Lawson was being sarcastic when she pronounced Meecro-wavé?! Now, I’m starting to think she really pronounces it like that?”

She replied: “I do say it like that, but not because I think that’s how it’s actually pronounced.”

In other tweets, Nigella went on to say she “always” pronounces microwave like that, and called it a “camp joke that becomes a habit”.

On one of her Instagram posts, someone asked Nigella: “Microwave said very oddly on your last program?”, to which she responded, saying she’d said it that way “on purpose”.

A comment on Nigella’s Instagram

A quick scroll through the rest of her Instagram comments shows Nigella is being inundated with microwave questions.

She posted a Christmas cake recipe this morning, and someone has already asked her if she “cooked it in the mickrow war vay?”, with another simply commenting “meechrowaave”. I’m guessing she’s now slightly regretting that family joke.

On Twitter, people were saying they would never say microwave in the normal way ever again, and someone even tweeted Nigella to tell her they’d changed the Wikipedia entry for microwave in her honour.

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