Amanda Louise Holden (born 16 February 1971)[1] is an English media personality, actress and singer. Since 2007, she has been a judge on the television talent show competition Britain's Got Talent on ITV. She also co-hosts the national Heart Breakfast radio show with Jamie Theakston on weekday mornings.
In 2013, Holden released her autobiography book, No Holding Back, which became a Sunday Times bestseller.[2] In 2020, she released her debut studio album, Songs from My Heart, which reached the top 5 on the UK Albums Chart.[3]
Early life
Holden was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire[4] and spent much of her childhood in Bishop's Waltham, and aged nine she joined Bishop's Waltham Little Theatre Company.
Holden's first television appearance was as a contestant on the game show Blind Date in 1991. From 2006 to 2008, Holden appeared as Sarah Trevanian in three series of ITV's Wild at Heart co-starring Stephen Tompkinson.[8]
In 1997, she was a cast member of pioneering Channel 5 sketch show, "We Know Where You Live" alongside Simon Pegg, Sanjeev Baskar, Ella Kenion, Fiona Allen and Jeremy Fowlds.[citation needed]
In 2009, Holden appeared as Lizzie, the Ring Mistress, in the BBC circus sitcom Big Top. In April 2009 it was reported the US network CBS had offered Holden a job as one-time guest presenter on The Early Show, a daytime talk show. On 1 June 2009 she appeared with regular presenters Harry Smith and Maggie Rodriguez. Holden has since signed with CBS as a British correspondent for The Early Show.
From 2009 until 2014 Holden co-presented A Night of Heroes: The Sun Military Awards annually on ITV with Phillip Schofield. In January 2010 she presented her own three-part series, Amanda Holden's Fantasy Lives, in which she tried out three of her dream jobs.[10]
In 2010, Holden co-presented The Door with Chris Tarrant. In 2011, Holden narrated the documentary The Nation's Favourite Bee Gees Song on ITV. On 6 July 2012 Holden guest presented an episode of Lorraine, standing in for Lorraine Kelly. She returned to guest present six further episodes of the show from 4 to 8 April and on 4 July 2016.
In 2012, Holden presented talent show Superstar on ITV. On 24 March 2014 she hosted an episode of the Channel 4 show Dispatches about the treatment for stillbirths and miscarriages.
Holden in 2012
From 22 September to 18 December 2014, Holden filled in as a co-host on This Morning with Phillip Schofield during Holly Willoughby's maternity leave. She took a short break in January and February 2015 to record the Britain's Got Talent auditions. Christine Lampard stood in for Holden during this time, before the latter returned to the show from 2 March until 17 July 2015.[11] She returned to This Morning in 2017, to co-present numerous episodes with Ben Shephard.
Holden presented a six-part factual series for ITV called Give a Pet a Home, which worked alongside the RSPCA finding homes for animals. The series aired in April and May 2015.[12]
On 18 December 2015 Holden was part of the presenting team for ITV's Christmas telethon Text Santa. In 2016 she presented I've Got Something To Tell You, a factual series for the W television channel.[13][14] She appeared as Miss Pentangle in CBBC's The Worst Witch in 2017. Holden made a guest appearance in the Australian soap opera Neighbours as Harriet Wallace in 2022. She began filming for the show in London during October 2021.[15]
In 2021, she started appearing in a new comedy mockumentary series from Bo' Selecta! creator Leigh Francis. The programme was called The Holden Girls: Mandy & Myrtle and featured Francis in drag with heavy make-up as Amanda's nan Myrtle. The show launched on the E4 channel with 601,938 viewers and was repeated on Channel 4. The show was axed after one series.[16]
In April 2019, it was announced Holden would replace Emma Bunton as co-host of Heart Breakfast with Jamie Theakston, at the same time as it went national on 3 June.[23]
From 2010 until 2012 Holden appeared in television commercial adverts for supermarket chain Tesco. Since 2012 she has appeared in television commercials for Danone Oykos low-fat yoghurt.
In October 2013, Amanda released her autobiography, No Holding Back,[27] which became a Sunday Times best seller.[28]
In 2015, she was the new face of the Alpen Brighter Morning Challenge.[29]
In 2021, she was the British spokesperson for the Eurovision Song Contest. She awarded UK's 12 jury points to France.
On 13 April 2008 Holden ran the London Marathon in 4 hours and 13 minutes, in the name of the Born Free Foundation,[33] having collected public and celebrity sponsors online. Since 2013, she has presented the RSPCA's Animal Hero Awards. Holden has raised money for Jeans for Genes and SSAFA via The Big Brew Up.[34][35]
In 2013, she became a celebrity ambassador for Battersea Dogs & Cats Home, following her work with Pedigree's 'Buy One, Feed One' campaign that she and fellow ambassador Paul O'Grady have been supporting together.[36]
In June 2018, Holden was photographed underwater by Zena Holloway.[37] She posed as a mermaid in an awareness campaign for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) to highlight the "disgusting treatment" of orcas at SeaWorld. Holden has also posed nude for PETA in a campaign to promote vegetarianism.[38]
In 1992, while they were both appearing in The Sound of Music, Holden dated George Asprey.[40] She married the comedian Les Dennis in June 1995. The couple separated temporarily in 2000 after Holden's affair with actor Neil Morrissey,[41] the subject of press interest, before separating permanently in December 2002 and divorcing in 2003. Around this time, she alleged she was sexually assaulted by an "unnamed famous comedian" at a public event.[42]
In 2006, Holden gave birth to her first child, a daughter, conceived with her fiancé, record producer Chris Hughes.[43] She married Hughes at Babington House,[44] Somerset, on 10 December 2008 with former Formula One racing driver David Coulthard acting as best man. After a miscarriage in 2010, she suffered their son being stillborn at seven months in 2011.[45] In 2012, despite medical complications, she gave birth to their second daughter.[46] Holden and Hughes reside in Petersham, Surrey.[47][48] Holden also owns a cottage in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire which she has been renovating since 2017.[49][50][51]
In December 2016, Holden's ancestry was the subject of a BBC programme in the Who Do You Think You Are? series.[52] The investigation discovered that her Cornish 5x great-grandfather, Collin Thomas, served a year's imprisonment after breaking his apprenticeship as a cordwainer by enlisting in the Royal Navy and leaving the United Kingdom aged 15. Ten years later, while serving in the British Army after the Peninsular War, he met and married a French woman and began a family near Bordeaux, France, then moved his wife and eldest children back to Great Britain.[53] Holden also learned that her grandfather, Frank Holden, a psychiatric nurse, was aboard the RMS Lancastria when it was bombed by the GermanLuftwaffe in June 1940 outside the port of Saint-Nazaire and sank with the loss of thousands of lives.[54] Frank Holden died by suicide in his 70s.[55]
In 2010, Holden campaigned to keep a Sainsbury's supermarket out of Bishop's Waltham. Residents of her hometown then accused her of a double standard in November 2010 when she signed a deal to appear in advertisements for Tesco, another UK supermarket chain.[56]
Holden is a fan of English Premier League football club Everton, attending home and away games when her schedule allows.[57] She has been vegetarian since she was thirteen.[58]
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