Amanda Holden
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 competition show Britain's Got Talent on ITV. She also co-hosts the national Heart Breakfast radio show with Jamie Theakston on weekday mornings.
For the writer, see Amanda Holden (writer).
Amanda Holden
- Media personality
- actress
- singer
1991–present
-
Chris Hughes(m. 2008)
2
Holden grew up in Bishop's Waltham and took an interest in acting and musical theatre while at school. She played the title role in the musical stage show Thoroughly Modern Millie in 2004, for which she was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award. Her acting credits on television include The Grimleys (1998–2001), Kiss Me Kate (1999–2001), Cutting It (2002–2004), Wild at Heart (2006–2008), and Big Top (2009). Holden has also presented various television shows for ITV, including The Sun Military Awards (2009–2014), Superstar (2012), This Morning (2014–2015, 2017), Text Santa (2015), and Give a Pet a Home (2015).
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[edit]
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.
She attended the secondary community school Swanmore College. At age 16, she relocated to Bournemouth,[5][6] before moving to South London to attend Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts.[7]
Career[edit]
Television[edit]
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 Bhaskar, Ella Kenion, Fiona Allen and Jeremy Fowlds.
Holden's other TV credits include three series of the comedy Kiss Me Kate with Caroline Quentin and Chris Langham, three series of ITV's The Grimleys, one series of Mad About Alice, Celeb with Harry Enfield, BBC series Hearts and Bones with Damian Lewis, the Jonathan Creek episode "The Problem at Gallowes Gate", and a Boxing Day special Agatha Christie's Marple episode "4.50 From Paddington" opposite Geraldine McEwan and John Hannah. She co-starred with Bill Nighy and Tom Courtenay in Ready When You Are, Mr. McGill, a comedy drama by Jack Rosenthal. Holden is a judge on Britain's Got Talent along with Simon Cowell, Bruno Tonioli, and Alesha Dixon. She joined the show in 2007.
She has appeared on British series such as Smack the Pony, EastEnders, Hearts and Bones, and Cutting It.[9]
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.
Charity work[edit]
Holden fronted the breast cancer awareness campaign of Everton F.C..[30] She is a patron of the football club's charity.[31] In September 2011 Holden was sponsored to bake a cake for every child in the Great Ormond Street Hospital.[32]
On 13 April 2008 Holden ran the London Marathon in four hours and thirteen minutes for the Born Free Foundation.[33] Since 2013 she has presented the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) 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 Petfoods campaign that she and fellow ambassador Paul O'Grady supported 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 orca at SeaWorld. Holden has also posed nude for PETA in a campaign to promote vegetarianism.[38]
In 2020 Holden raised money for the National Health Service (NHS) during the COVID-19 pandemic.[39]
Personal life[edit]
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] Holden and Dennis separated permanently in December 2002 and divorced in 2003. Around this time, she alleged that she was sexually assaulted by an "unnamed famous comedian" at a public event.[42]
In 2006 Holden gave birth to her first child conceived with her then 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 third child.[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 was aboard the RMS Lancastria when it was bombed by the Wehrmacht in June 1940 outside the port of Saint-Nazaire.[54]
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.[55]
Holden is a fan of English Premier League football club Everton F.C., attending home and away games when her schedule allows.[56] She is a pescetarian.[57]