Who Was Rayne Kruger? Prue Leith’s First Husband Explained

Rayne Kruger was a South African-born writer and property developer, and the first husband of Dame Prue Leith. Their marriage began as a long affair, lasted 28 years, and produced two children — including a son who’s now a sitting MP. Here’s his story.

Quick Facts

Who Was Rayne Kruger?

Kruger was a writer and property developer, originally from South Africa, who built a career away from the public eye he’d later share with Leith. He wasn’t a television or restaurant figure himself — his own career was in writing and property — but Leith has credited him directly with helping launch her career as a cookery writer and Michelin-starred restaurateur, describing their partnership as central to her early professional success.

How He Met Prue Leith

Kruger and Leith met when she was 21 and he was 39 — and, at the time, married to a close friend of Leith’s mother. In her 2012 autobiography Relish: My Life on a Plate, Leith described how the relationship began as an affair that lasted 13 years before the two eventually married in 1974, once both were free to do so.

Marriage and Family

Kruger and Leith were married for 28 years, until his death in 2002. They had two children: son Danny Kruger, born in 1974 and now the MP for East Wiltshire, and daughter Li-Da, who the couple adopted the following year and who became a filmmaker.

Leith has spoken candidly about the demands of building her career while raising two children with Kruger, admitting in later interviews that she sent both children to boarding school at 12 and wasn’t always present — something she’s said reflects a different era of parenting rather than a choice she’d defend by today’s standards.

Death and Legacy

Kruger died in 2002 at the age of 80. Leith has said he “had a really good life,” and has spoken about the years afterward as a period of adjusting to being a widow and grandmother rather than a partner in a working marriage. She remained single for 14 years before meeting her current husband, John Playfair, whom she married in 2016.

FAQ

Who was Rayne Kruger?

A South African-born writer and property developer who was married to Prue Leith from 1974 until his death in 2002.

How did Rayne Kruger and Prue Leith meet?

They met when she was 21 and he was 39, beginning a 13-year affair before marrying in 1974.

Did Rayne Kruger and Prue Leith have children?

Yes — son Danny Kruger, now an MP, and daughter Li-Da, a filmmaker, whom they adopted a year after Danny’s birth.

When did Rayne Kruger die?

In 2002, at the age of 80, after 28 years of marriage to Leith.

Did Prue Leith remarry after Rayne Kruger’s death?

Yes, she married retired fashion designer John Playfair in 2016, 14 years after Kruger’s death.

Sources: Prue Leith, Wikipedia; Danny Kruger, Wikipedia; Leith’s 2012 autobiography Relish: My Life on a Plate, via E! News; PressReader/Daily Express.