Baker in ‘free cake’ row shares pic of ‘camp’ dessert after Catherine Tyldesley accused her of ‘craving exposure’
3 August 2023, 13:28 | Updated: 3 August 2023, 14:35
A baker who refused to make Catherine Tyldesley 100 cakes for free has broken her silence after she was accused of "craving exposure".
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Rebecca Severs, who runs the Three Little Birds bakery, has thanked her followers for supporting her on social media, sharing a picture of the cake she was asked to make for a 'camp as t*ts' themed party.
"I wish I had the time to reply to all your amazing messages one by one. But I totally don't," she said.
"But please know that know how much solidarity is out there for small business is incredible and every message of support means a lot!"
She then revealed her brother-in-law created an AI-generated image of the 'infamous cake request' from the Coronation Street star.
It is a three-tiered cake with a pink flamingo and a gold star on top.
Rebecca Severs, from Keighley in Yorkshire, sells cakes and provides baking classes through her bakery, which she founded seven years ago.
Ms Severs was recently contacted by a publicist who was organising a birthday party for an unnamed celebrity.
The PR asked Ms Severs for more than 100 free cakes - a birthday cake for the star, a smaller cake for her husband, and 100 cupcakes.
The theme of the party is "camp as t*ts".
The publicist offered no payment other than exposure, saying that "payment would be made in the form of promotion on their socials with over 700k followers", as well as being covered in a celebrity magazine.
"The party has a guest lists [sic] full of celebrities and industry from tv / film and music, so loads of work would come from it," the publicist added.
The baker turned the offer down, saying: "I'm so sorry to hear that your client has fallen on such hard times that they can't afford to pay small businesses for their services."
"Unfortunately, as my mortgage provider doesn't take payment 'in the form of promotion on their socials', and my staff can't feed their kids with exposure on Instagram, I'll have to decline your very generous offer."
Ms Severs later shared screenshots of the exchange on Facebook, writing: "This poor celebrity apparently can't afford to pay people for their products and services. Spare a thought! What happened to women supporting women."
In a video posted on Wednesday morning, the actress hit back, denying she had asked for free cake.
“Utterly bizarre. I don't really know what to say. I mean I hope the cake lady got the exposure she was craving.
“Cake gate! WHAT!'
“So I had no idea those emails were being sent. I'm not working with the lovely Ok magazine on anything that I'm aware of and NVRLND are an amazing company.
“They've supplied me with performers in the past;. They're insane and they've been completely misrepresented in this matter.”
Ms Severs later said the bakery had been threatened with legal action for the post.
Ironically, Ms Severs turning down 'payment in exposure' appears to have garnered a huge wave of interest and orders from the bakery.
Three Little Birds said on Tuesday: "We are getting a massive amount of phone calls, emails and messages as a result of the media coverage of the news story that is us refusing to work for [heart] emojis."
