'Great British Baking Show' contestant defends missing Bread Week after viewers joked she skipped the difficult rounds on purpose

Bread Week is famously one of the toughest parts of the popular UK baking competition, but bakers Rebs and Abdul had to miss it due to illnesses.

• "The Great British Baking Show" entered its third week, Bread Week, without two of its bakers.
• After it aired, Rebs Lightbody nixed claims that she faked sick to get out of the difficult bakes.
• Warning: This story contains spoilers for "The Great British Baking Show."

This week's episode of "The Great British Baking Show," also known as "The Great British Bake Off" in the UK, marked the return of Bread Week — but two contestants were notably absent.

Host Matt Lucas opened the episode by announcing that Rebs Lightbody and Abdul Rehman Sharif were feeling "under the weather," so the show sent them home to recover. 

Many fans made jokes on Twitter about how they thought the bakers were actually pretending to be sick to get out of one of the show's most difficult weeks of challenges. 

On Tuesday — when the episode premiered in the UK — Lightbody took to Twitter to respond to these jabs, emphasizing how much she didn't want to leave the tent. 

Part of the post read, "Will say it once for the people in the back, I DID NOT want to miss bread week (it was probably my strongest week), I was forced to go home for the safety of all in the tent."

She replied to her tweet, adding, "No matter what you think of me and my bakes pls know I didn't pull a "sickie", I begged to stay and then I cried all the way back to Northern Ireland."

Sharif, who doesn't appear to be as active on social media, hasn't said anything about his absence. 

In her tweets, Lightbody also hinted at what she had been planning on making this week: a Middle Eastern-inspired lahmacun pizza and a Mexican-style smörgåstårta (decorative Swedish sandwich cake).

In a surprise twist, none of the bakers were eliminated from the tent

At the end of every "Bake Off" episode, one contestant is named Star Baker and another is sent home.

But because Lightbody and Sharif missed the Bread Week challenges, no one was eliminated from this week's episode. 

The same thing has happened before, on seasons three, five, and nine, but it's a rare occurrence.