No Holding Back

by Amanda Holden

  Les continued to pursue his dreams of becoming an actor and was offered the lead in the play Misery at the Oldham Coliseum. At this point the papers were already calling him ‘Les Miserables’, and they had a field day with this. Back in London, I went to the Comedy Awards with a group of friends. It was a lovely night – until the next day, when the Mirror ran exclusive pictures and suggested that there was something going on between the producer and me. We were all furious. Les and I were both good friends with him, and it was pure fabrication. (Les even wrote to Piers Morgan demanding that he stop printing ‘salacious and vicious’ gossip. Piers, of course, published his letter . . .) The press went crazy, and once again Les and I became prisoners in our own homes. I escaped to Majorca with Jess and photographers followed our every move.

  One day, Harry Enfield, who lived nearby in Primrose Hill with his wife and kids, shoved a script through my door for his new show Celeb, featuring ageing rocker ‘Gary Bloke’ (Harry) and a WAG type (me!). Of course, I said yes. I was over the moon to be asked – I adored and admired Harry. I based my character on a cross between Posh Spice and Jordan, and Harry based his on Mick Jagger. The reviews were great, but not so good for Harry. It was recommissioned and we were even nominated for a Rose d’Or comedy award, but after that Harry retreated back into himself. He lost confidence and so cancelled the second series.

  Les and I went to Norfolk on our own to see if we could patch things up again, and – in a slightly desperate attempt to convince ourselves that we were still going to make it – we ended up making an offer on another house overlooking lavender fields. We promised we’d always keep our little cottage but convinced ourselves that this new property would give us another fresh start. (I don’t know who we were trying to kid!)

  Around this time, Mike called Les to tell him that there were plans to move Family Fortunes to a daytime slot. Les saw it as an insult and it sent him spinning into one of his mammoth depressions. After much soul-searching, he decided to find himself a new agent. Mike had been brilliant for him and had set him up for life in terms of work, investments and pensions for when he reached a certain age. (Almost everyone who was managed by Mike had not only enjoyed a fantastic career but seemed to be well off in retirement.) Les was sorry to be finally parting company with the man who’d done so much for him over twenty-five years, but I think Mike was just relieved in the end.

  Les entered into discussions with Carlton about Family Fortunes. As well as moving his show to a daytime slot without a live audience, the production team were insisting he take a big pay cut. Having considered all his options, and taken advice from his new agent, Les decided to walk. After that, he became convinced that his career was in a downward spiral. He still hankered after some real acting. He desperately needed to feel wanted.

  Meanwhile, I was working almost non-stop. I auditioned for a role in Die Another Day opposite Pierce Brosnan as a Bond girl at Pinewood Studios. I spent all day in my underwear learning how to fence, with Colin Salmon playing my ‘Bond’. (Instead of looking sexy and empowered, most of the time I was red-faced and sweaty!) I was up against Saffron Burrows and Rosamund Pike, and I couldn’t believe I was there – I never believed for a moment I would get it, and I didn’t. I’d have loved to have done it and it would have taken me down a path I ultimately wanted. The role went to Rosamund, and she did a fantastic job in the film.

  Also, most of the time I was based in Manchester filming Cutting It. I had my own flat up there in a block shared by my co-stars (Sarah, Angela Griffin, Lucy Gaskell and Siân Reeves, plus ‘honorary girl’ Ben Daniels). It was hilarious. We got to know each other so well – it was a bit like being students again, but with a bit more cash. (Sarah had a running machine so that she could get fit, but she hung her washing on it instead!)

  We held Sex and the City nights on Wednesdays, curled up in our underwear with a bowl of crisps or a curry (and a lot of white wine!). Each of us had an alter ego in the show, and we decided I was a cross between naughty Samantha and homebody Charlotte (because I was up for most things but always liked to do it in 100 per cent Egyptian cotton sheets!).

  The Cutting It schedule was brutal – long, cold days and nights. What no one realises about dramas is how cold they are! You always film in the winter, you do sixteen- or seventeen-hour days, and you’re normally filming in buildings that aren’t heated because they’re empty. In what is supposed to be your home! You can often see your own breath, it’s that cold. In Cutting It we were always saying, ‘Can’t you see our breath?’ to the cameraman!

  Our enforced separation wasn’t helping Les and I get our marriage back on track, and when he was invited to take part in Celebrity Big Brother I have to admit that I didn’t discourage him. Les was told by the production team that CBB was only for ten days, would raise a lot of money for charity and that there would be just five other contestants. He decided to accept after telling anyone who’d listen that he wanted to be seen as something other than ‘telly wallpaper’ and someone other than ‘Mr Amanda Holden’. (I think he hoped a bit of reality TV would give him a chance to reinvent himself.)

  Just before Les was due to go into the CBB house, we were both invited to Norfolk to celebrate our dear friend Jeanne Whittome’s 40th birthday. Jeanne and Paul were so important to me, I desperately wanted to get there – I even looked into hiring a helicopter from Manchester! – but in the end I couldn’t make it. It was a few weeks before I returned to Norfolk when in, of all places, a car park in Fakenham, Les suddenly confessed that he’d slept with someone I knew at the party. This new revelation was different to when he’d snogged my Australian actress friend the previous year, though. It was more than a quick snog. I remember consciously wondering how I should be feeling. Angry? Hurt? Betrayed? The truth is, I felt none of them. Sadly, I just felt relieved. His infidelity was to become my passport out. It was over two years since my affair with Neil Morrissey had first been exposed and we’d done everything we could to try to fix our marriage, including marriage counselling.

  I was with Les the day he went in to the Big Brother house and I wished him all the best. I genuinely hoped the show would work for him. I wanted him to have something new and exciting to build on for his future away from Family Fortunes. However, I didn’t watch it at the start. I couldn’t – we were on a night shoot and I had no time to watch it. After a few days, though, the crew started talking about Les’s behaviour – about how he talked about me all the time, moaned about the press, and sang show tunes with fellow contestant Anne Diamond. And then there were the chickens . . . I was told how he chatted to them, imitated them, and danced with them. (I think he originally did it to be funny, but it apparently just came across as mental.)

  Everyone became obsessed with finding a TV so they could watch it. I was kept informed by my PR Alison Griffin and it seemed he was having what I can only describe as some sort of breakdown. The footage was carefully edited and manipulated, of course, but even the most skilled production team couldn’t fake him singing to himself, agonising over voting other people out – or his tears in the diary room. He came across like a man on the brink, which is what he was. I was the only one who knew it was really about our relationship, but for once I was powerless to help. The best thing that happened to him in there was Mark Owen from Take That befriending him (at least he had someone to talk to other than the chickens!).

  The whole experience backfired badly. Piers Morgan labelled Les ‘the most pathetic man in Britain’. I was genuinely mortified on his behalf and prayed he’d get voted out. Of course, the public voted for him to stay in – they wanted to see more of his craziness – and he ended up coming second to winner Mark. The CBB production team asked me to the live evictions and – just as with the Norfolk birthday party – I did try, but it wasn’t possible because of my schedule. In the end, they filmed me sending him a message in some really cheesy piece to camera. I was petrified, and begged Sarah and Ben, my co-stars in Cutting It, to come along for moral support. I thou
ght it would come across as fun, but instead I was told it looked insincere and mean. I never dreamed it would come across that way and looking back I know it must also have hurt Les that I wasn’t there in person, but my producers wouldn’t allow it, and rightly so.

  In the week or so after his eviction, we hardly saw each other – I was still in Manchester and he was invited on to one TV sofa after another to talk about the show. As the media speculated on how long it would be before we were reunited, we both knew our marriage was crumbling around us. Most of our conversations were over the phone. They were still very loving conversations, but sad and short. Eventually, back in London, we admitted to each other we needed to part for good.

  I knew that was the right thing to do, but I wanted us to save face and have one last Christmas together. I didn’t want to ruin it for our family. Les, however, couldn’t pretend any more. He said, ‘No, Amanda. I’m going to my family this Christmas.’ I was gutted but, true to his word, he packed his bags and went to stay with his sister. Before he left, he told me we should get divorce lawyers early in the new year. I appointed Fiona Shackleton, she was brilliant and we remain friends to this day.

  Even though I knew that it was inevitable, the word ‘divorce’ shattered me. Les and I had spent nearly ten years together, travelling the world, making some wonderful friends, and enjoying some of the best times of our lives. We had our two dogs, Nobbie and Fudge. We had a decade of memories at our adorable cottage in Norfolk and in the London house we’d chosen and lovingly furnished together. We still had that elephant of a place in Norfolk on which we’d recently exchanged, but never lived in. (Les sold it within days of completion.)

  Without doubt, Christmas 2002 was the worst of my life. But, as always, I plastered a smile on my face and pretended everything was okay. Mum and Dad, Nan and Papa were coming and I’d begged Debbie to come too. However, she had a new boyfriend and left for Germany. But nevertheless, I did the works: champagne and smoked salmon, a huge turkey and presents under the tree. And everyone had a stocking from Santa. But when I woke up alone in my bed on Christmas morning I just felt lonely and depressed. (I texted Les ‘Happy Christmas’, which just made me feel worse!)

  Halfway through the morning, I was feeling so down that I told everyone I was going for a bath. After forty minutes or so – definitely no more – Mum burst in to complain that I’d been too long. ‘Your grandparents are waiting downstairs. You’re being selfish!’ I couldn’t believe it. I’d been gone just over half an hour. Dinner was on. Did my family really need me to entertain them? I explained that I was feeling a bit sad and needed some time to myself. But instead, she told me to pull myself together. ‘Don’t be silly – you’re not sad! You’ve needed this for a long time. Now get out and get dressed!’

  Three days later, Les and I issued a statement announcing that we’d separated for good. It sparked headlines such as ‘Showbiz Amanda Ditches Sad Les’ and claimed Les’s friends and family were on ‘suicide watch’ with him. It was finally over. He flew off on holiday to Shaker’s Rock (how relevant), South Africa with Andy Grainger and Paul Whittome while I gathered my Cutting It girlfriends and my childhood friend Fig and decamped to the Hotel Arts in Barcelona for New Year.

  The press made us out to be the UK’s answer to Sex and the City. None of us were in the party mood, but we cheered ourselves up by doing a bit of shopping and, all things considered, we did have a brilliant time. All of us had recently split up from our partners and we decided to make the most of it. There were at least twenty photographers following our every move.

  On New Year’s Eve we sneaked through the kitchens and used the laundry lift rather than the main entrance (it was like something out of GoodFellas!). The hotel asked all guests at the gala dinner not to take any photographs, so we relaxed, drank far too much, and had an amazing time. The girls and I still say that, even though it was the direst of circumstances, no New Year has ever topped that one for us. Unfortunately, though, the camera ban didn’t extend to tape recorders, and someone sitting near by recorded everything about our night and someone got a picture of me on their phone. The next day the Daily Mail published a full transcript, alongside a photo of me in a Groucho Marx nose and moustache from my New Years Eve goodie bag, with the headline, ‘Amanda Holden: Leave me alone. I’m grieving.’ When I read it, I found it very funny. But what the press didn’t know was that shortly after the clock struck midnight I crept away and quietly called Les to wish him all the best for 2003. I told him I hoped it was a better year for both of us, and I meant every word.

  There had to have been something seriously wrong with my marriage for me to have started an affair with Neil, and Les later admitted some responsibility for it. It’s no defence, but the bottom line is, if you’re happily married you don’t seek comfort elsewhere. Women don’t seek sex, but love and affirmation, as I have said before.

  I know I could have handled things better. I should have left Les first or figured out a better way of saving what we had. I could never have anticipated the viciousness of the fallout from the tabloid media! It’s such an awful punishment for having an affair in this country as a woman. I had always been such a good girl, but the press turned me into this utter vixen, and I was never forgiven for it. I never would have thought I’d end up being a girl the tabloids would be interested in. If you’d told me as a young drama student I would be all over The Sun or the Mirror because of my love life, I would have absolutely died. It all made me lose sight of who I was.

  I ruined my reputation – professionally and with the press – but most importantly with the public who had always been so supportive. My family knew the full story and loved me no matter what, but it was embarrassing for them to face it all so relentlessly and publically. Even when, much later, Chris met me, he said I was constantly justifying myself, apologising, telling people I wasn’t the person they thought I was. I felt like I couldn’t hold my head up, like everyone I met was judging me. I was fast approaching my 32nd birthday and had more than achieved all my teenage ambitions to be working full-time as an actress. I wouldn’t have to fall back on my Plan B. But I felt like a slut. I was portrayed as a minx and Les as a middle-aged game-show host, a helpless national treasure. I had done what every journalist was waiting for me to do. I had fallen right into their hands, and I had to fight for twelve years to get that perception of me changed.

  Chapter 12

  Hughes a Lucky Girl

  I suppose there are less public ways of announcing a new chapter in your life than an interview with Michael Parkinson on prime-time TV in front of several million viewers . . . But for me it seemed the right way to mark my new status as a single girl. When Parky asked me outright if there was a man in my life, I shot back cheekily, ‘Are you asking?’ (He wasn’t.)

  ‘No, there isn’t,’ I said, more seriously. ‘I absolutely don’t have anybody in my life. It’s going to take a very brave man to love me.’

  I was, of course, fibbing. What Parky – and even my close friends – didn’t know was that I’d already found that man! Unusually for me, I hadn’t told anyone that I was dating Chris Hughes. He’d stressed to me how he was wary of getting involved with someone whose life had been splashed over the tabloids for years. I was determined that nothing – and no one – was going to get in the way of our fledgling love affair.

  Les and I now only spoke through lawyers, even though, as we had no children and I didn’t think Les owed me anything, I had asked to take very little away from my marriage. All I wanted were Nobbie, Fudge and our Norfolk cottage. Les gave me the dogs readily, and I bought him out of the cottage. It was my ‘heart’ place, and I was determined to hang on to the happy memories we’d had there.

  Before I moved out, and whilst the divorce was being finalised, I flew to Thailand with my nan to visit my sister Debbie. We had both been looking forward to being on the other side of the planet and out of contact for two weeks. Thailand felt like a world away, and that was exactly where I wanted to
be for a while. And in more ways than one, Thailand was worlds away. My sister was working in the middle of nowhere as a diving instructor. She looked fantastic: tall, slim and brown, relaxed in a sarong and a bikini top, and fully immersed in the laid-back Thai culture. I, on the other hand, turned up in killer heels and a designer dress, and needed six locals to pull my suitcases off the boat (Joan Collins had nothing on me!).

  Debbie just laughed at me – until I embarrassed her by overtipping. She joked that I was screwing up the whole economy and laughingly said I was also responsible for an upturn on sparkly flip-flops. Suddenly everyone seemed to be wearing them, and she put it down to me! My Nan, aged 83, went scuba diving! I finally had some space and time to get my head around the huge changes that were happening in my life. For the first time since I was sixteen, I was truly on my own. It was huge, and it was frightening. When I got home I resolved to enjoy some time with my girlfriends and my family, and to focus on my career. It was going to be my time.

  And so, when I got back, I moved into the Philip Stark St John’s Wood flat I’d bought as an investment. It was in a really cool apartment building, and was home to other people in the public eye, so it was also very secure. I decorated my new home in purple, with movie posters, books and a chaise longue. My girlfriends called it my ‘boudoir’. It was dark and cosy and safe, and it was my refuge.

  Then, out of the blue, during London Fashion Week, my press agent Alison Griffin told me that Chris Hughes was involved in an event and had asked her if I would go. It was on the same day as the Elle Style Awards that I was already going to with Jane and a gang of girlfriends, but there was plenty of time to attend both. Chris offered to send a car and so it seemed like a no-brainer to go to his event first.

  When Jane and I arrived, we were really well looked after and felt very special. The whole place looked amazing and it was the first time I’d ever been to fashion week. Jane and I were given seats on the front row and were like giggly schoolgirls. We couldn’t believe our luck. Then Chris turned to me and sweetly said, ‘I think you are the prettiest girl in this room!’