Paul John Hollywood MBE (born 1 March 1966) is an English celebrity chef and television personality, widely known as a judge on The Great British Bake Off since 2010.

Hollywood began his career at his father's bakery as a teenager and went on to serve as head baker at a number of British and international hotels.

After returning from working in Cyprus, Hollywood appeared as a guest on a number of British television programmes on both BBC and ITV.

Hollywood studied sculpture at the Wallasey School of Art based at Liscard Hall,[5] but left to start work as a baker.

[11] His partnership with Mary Berry has been described in The Guardian as being the "secret weapon" of the show and potentially one of the best judging combinations to have appeared on reality television.

The programme revealed that his grandfather Norman Harman, who served in the Army during World War II, saw action in the Tunisia Campaign and at the Battle of Anzio and that his great-great-grandfather, Kenneth MacKenzie, had been a policeman in the City of Glasgow Police in the 1850s.

[22] In December 2017, Hollywood appeared as a judge on The Great American Baking Show, the second incarnation of the GBBO series in the United States.

[23] In 2019, Hollywood made a comment on The Great British Bake Off that a cake looked like "diabetes on a plate" and after complaints, he apologised on his social media.

[28] In May 2023, Hollywood appeared in the trailer for the BBC coverage of the Eurovision Song Contest, which was being hosted that year in Liverpool.

Hollywood met his now-former wife Alexandra in Cyprus where he was a head baker at a five-star hotel and she was a scuba diving instructor.

[43] He was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2024 New Year Honours for services to baking and broadcasting.