Post by Alisha Meehan on Jun 14, 2008 3:04:57 GMT 12
Actress Amanda Holden, 36, was recently back on our screens as a judge on TV's Britain's Got Talent. She talks to Shona Sibary about motherhood, marriage second time round and men behaving badly.
When I was 16, my mother and stepfather uprooted me from Bishop's Waltham in Hampshire, and we moved to Bournemouth, where they took over the running of a hotel. I'm a very sentimental person and a real hoarder. I hate it if I feel I can't keep something, yet I've managed to lose contact with most of my friends from childhood.
At the time I couldn't believe they'd done this terrible thing to me. I had to start all over again making roots. My younger sister Debbie-whose now a driving instructor in Thailand (but will be coming back for my wedding in December)-was allowed to stay behind with my grandmother and finish her O-levels, but I had to go, and at the time I wanted to kill my mother. She still feels guilty, but it turned out to be the best thing that could have happened. I loved drama, but there were very few courses in Hampshire, and mum found a fantastic A-level theatre studies course at Bournemouth Poly.
My mother dragged me along for an audition and I sat there, slouched in my seat, hating the world. The funny thing was, she hadn't told me I needed to prepare a Shakespearean speech to recite so she said, "Go on Amanda, do your Marilyn Monroe impression." I wanted to die of embarrassment but Terry Clarke, who founded the course, thought the whole thing was hilarious and accepted me anyway.
In the past, I've thrown myself into work so much there's been very little room for anything else. My fiance, Chris, is always telling me I should have hobbies but I find it hard to focus on more than one thing. Friends say I'm like Charlotte from Sex and the City-which probably isn't a compliment!
When my daughter Lexi was born two years ago, I transferred ambition and single-mindedness into looking after her. I'd drawn up timetables, lists and schedules, and was quite uptight about the whole thing. But as she's got older I've relaxed more, and having her has helped me ignore a large chunk of the stuff I used to worry about. She's also made me more easy-going about work because I understand that there's nothing more streeful in life than being late for Gymboree on a Friday morning.
When I look at my daughter, I can't understand how my father could have walked out on me. He left when I was small, and growing up, I hardly saw him. I don't feel any bitterness now and I've tried to build bridges because it's the grown-up thing to do. We're friendly- I send him pictures of Lexi and I took her to see him-but we're not close.
He has regrets but that's something he has to deal with. My relationship with my step-father is so much stronger and I feel humbled by the sacrifices he made for me. He took on two children who weren't his own and that's the biggest love I could ever have asked for.
My mother has found it very hard to let go and see me as an adult. When I was growing up she was so encouraging. She was very close to my sister and me, and when we left home she struggled alot. Since then, she has created a new life and is fine. She and my stepdad, Les, live in a chocolate box cottage by the sea in Cornwall, and mum has taken up yoga and made lots of friends. But seeing how difficult she found the empty nest has made me realise the importance of having a full life of my own. As Lexi gets older and needs me less, I'll probably find it devastating too, so I'm determined to learn from what mum has gone through.
Britain's Got Talent has been the best job in the world. I feel geuinely moved by the effort that has gone into some of the acts. Being the only woman on the panel I don't feel I have to be more compassionate than Piers and Simon-I think I just come across as a bit more human than the two of them put together!
The backlash over my affair with Neil Morrissey was the worst thing that ever happened to me. Up to that point I'd never been in any major trouble, and I found the fall from grace incredibly hard to deal with. I can't bear not to be liked and I've always been a people pleaser. I was a prefect at school-I never had a tatoo, got a detention or pierced my ears more than once. Then I had an affair, and overnight turned into this awful person.
Looking back, I can see that when I married Les not everybody believed I loved him and that it was going to last because he's 16 years older than me- they were waiting for something to happen. Our relationship lasted for 11 years, which isn't bad considering I met him when I was 22. I should have been out there having a wild time like all the other girls my age, but I wasn't. I was going home every night to what was, initially, a very happy marriage. Then I had the affair and everything went mad. Les has always been a bit of a national treasure, and Neil had that whol Men Behaving Badly image-it was perfect headline material but a horrendous thing to go through. There are no hard feelings with Les-I wash him the best but we've both moved on.
I wish I had Piers Morgan on my side. He was the editor of The Mirror at the time and relentlessly chased me for details whent eh affair story broke. But now I know him I can see he's so brilliant with advice that if I'd befriended him rather than letting him chase me, the whole nightmare would have been so much easier to handle. Somehow he makes it all quite funny, and when I look back I wish I could have laughed a little bit more.
Chris made everything better. We're such good friends and have had a ball together. Nobody knows this, but his dad was Les's manager for 25 years, and the biggest single influence in Les's life. So I'd met Chris on three occasions while I was married to Les, and I don't remember any of them! Chris tells me he can recount every conversation we had, and he always had this feeling we were going to end up together.
We've been planning our wedding but for some reason I'm nervous. It's unlike me because I'm the one who doesn't get fazed about things. All I can think is that it's because I'm so desperate to get it right. The one thing I regret about my first wedding- and it is the only thing because Les was a fantastic person- is that when I walked down the aisle he never turned round to look at me. If he's reading this now he's probably going, "Oh here she goes again." But I was devastated at the time.
My best friend, Jane, was a bridesmaid at my first wedding, and will be a bridesmaid at my second. We went to drama school together and had babies ten days apart but two years later she emigrated to LA and I miss her so much. Recently she came back to London for a visit and it was like she'd never been away. I said to her, "I love you so much because we can pick up our friendship like an old sock."
My other dear friend, Jess, is my make-up artist. I've known her for ten years and she's been through everything with me. She's so practical and funny. She brings everything right back down to earth. I'm also very close to [actress] Sarah Parish, whose baby is due in June, and she's in Hampshire, nesting.
One of my biggest mentors is Haylie Mills. I adore her. From the moment she was cast as my mum in Wild At Heart I had this feeling I'd know her for the rest of my life. We bonded when we were filming in South Africa because it can be quite isolating on location and missing your friends and family back home. I think she found it hard to begin with. But she's so warm, bright and funny that we slipped into a friendship easily. If I was having a bad day for whatever reason, she'd say, "Darling, come over for a bottle of something and I'll make pasta."
One of my greatest passions is my weekend home in Norfolk. Les Dennis and I owned it when we were married then I bought him out after the divorce. It was Les who introduced me to Norfolk and it's such a special place for me. It's not on the way to anywhere else so everybody who's there really wants to be there. And that gives it this really lovely atmosphere.
The house isn't grand or anything. It's a red brick Victorian farmer's cottage set in the middle of patchwork fields, and my next door neighbour has a backyard that looks like something out of Steptoe and son. But the moment I arrive, usually late on a Friday night, Chris lights the fire, and I climb into my huge claw-foot bath with Lexi and a glass of wine, and I truly feel I've come home. It's bliss.
Awwww if I didn't love you so much Amanda I'd be jellous! ;D
When I was 16, my mother and stepfather uprooted me from Bishop's Waltham in Hampshire, and we moved to Bournemouth, where they took over the running of a hotel. I'm a very sentimental person and a real hoarder. I hate it if I feel I can't keep something, yet I've managed to lose contact with most of my friends from childhood.
At the time I couldn't believe they'd done this terrible thing to me. I had to start all over again making roots. My younger sister Debbie-whose now a driving instructor in Thailand (but will be coming back for my wedding in December)-was allowed to stay behind with my grandmother and finish her O-levels, but I had to go, and at the time I wanted to kill my mother. She still feels guilty, but it turned out to be the best thing that could have happened. I loved drama, but there were very few courses in Hampshire, and mum found a fantastic A-level theatre studies course at Bournemouth Poly.
My mother dragged me along for an audition and I sat there, slouched in my seat, hating the world. The funny thing was, she hadn't told me I needed to prepare a Shakespearean speech to recite so she said, "Go on Amanda, do your Marilyn Monroe impression." I wanted to die of embarrassment but Terry Clarke, who founded the course, thought the whole thing was hilarious and accepted me anyway.
In the past, I've thrown myself into work so much there's been very little room for anything else. My fiance, Chris, is always telling me I should have hobbies but I find it hard to focus on more than one thing. Friends say I'm like Charlotte from Sex and the City-which probably isn't a compliment!
When my daughter Lexi was born two years ago, I transferred ambition and single-mindedness into looking after her. I'd drawn up timetables, lists and schedules, and was quite uptight about the whole thing. But as she's got older I've relaxed more, and having her has helped me ignore a large chunk of the stuff I used to worry about. She's also made me more easy-going about work because I understand that there's nothing more streeful in life than being late for Gymboree on a Friday morning.
When I look at my daughter, I can't understand how my father could have walked out on me. He left when I was small, and growing up, I hardly saw him. I don't feel any bitterness now and I've tried to build bridges because it's the grown-up thing to do. We're friendly- I send him pictures of Lexi and I took her to see him-but we're not close.
He has regrets but that's something he has to deal with. My relationship with my step-father is so much stronger and I feel humbled by the sacrifices he made for me. He took on two children who weren't his own and that's the biggest love I could ever have asked for.
My mother has found it very hard to let go and see me as an adult. When I was growing up she was so encouraging. She was very close to my sister and me, and when we left home she struggled alot. Since then, she has created a new life and is fine. She and my stepdad, Les, live in a chocolate box cottage by the sea in Cornwall, and mum has taken up yoga and made lots of friends. But seeing how difficult she found the empty nest has made me realise the importance of having a full life of my own. As Lexi gets older and needs me less, I'll probably find it devastating too, so I'm determined to learn from what mum has gone through.
Britain's Got Talent has been the best job in the world. I feel geuinely moved by the effort that has gone into some of the acts. Being the only woman on the panel I don't feel I have to be more compassionate than Piers and Simon-I think I just come across as a bit more human than the two of them put together!
The backlash over my affair with Neil Morrissey was the worst thing that ever happened to me. Up to that point I'd never been in any major trouble, and I found the fall from grace incredibly hard to deal with. I can't bear not to be liked and I've always been a people pleaser. I was a prefect at school-I never had a tatoo, got a detention or pierced my ears more than once. Then I had an affair, and overnight turned into this awful person.
Looking back, I can see that when I married Les not everybody believed I loved him and that it was going to last because he's 16 years older than me- they were waiting for something to happen. Our relationship lasted for 11 years, which isn't bad considering I met him when I was 22. I should have been out there having a wild time like all the other girls my age, but I wasn't. I was going home every night to what was, initially, a very happy marriage. Then I had the affair and everything went mad. Les has always been a bit of a national treasure, and Neil had that whol Men Behaving Badly image-it was perfect headline material but a horrendous thing to go through. There are no hard feelings with Les-I wash him the best but we've both moved on.
I wish I had Piers Morgan on my side. He was the editor of The Mirror at the time and relentlessly chased me for details whent eh affair story broke. But now I know him I can see he's so brilliant with advice that if I'd befriended him rather than letting him chase me, the whole nightmare would have been so much easier to handle. Somehow he makes it all quite funny, and when I look back I wish I could have laughed a little bit more.
Chris made everything better. We're such good friends and have had a ball together. Nobody knows this, but his dad was Les's manager for 25 years, and the biggest single influence in Les's life. So I'd met Chris on three occasions while I was married to Les, and I don't remember any of them! Chris tells me he can recount every conversation we had, and he always had this feeling we were going to end up together.
We've been planning our wedding but for some reason I'm nervous. It's unlike me because I'm the one who doesn't get fazed about things. All I can think is that it's because I'm so desperate to get it right. The one thing I regret about my first wedding- and it is the only thing because Les was a fantastic person- is that when I walked down the aisle he never turned round to look at me. If he's reading this now he's probably going, "Oh here she goes again." But I was devastated at the time.
My best friend, Jane, was a bridesmaid at my first wedding, and will be a bridesmaid at my second. We went to drama school together and had babies ten days apart but two years later she emigrated to LA and I miss her so much. Recently she came back to London for a visit and it was like she'd never been away. I said to her, "I love you so much because we can pick up our friendship like an old sock."
My other dear friend, Jess, is my make-up artist. I've known her for ten years and she's been through everything with me. She's so practical and funny. She brings everything right back down to earth. I'm also very close to [actress] Sarah Parish, whose baby is due in June, and she's in Hampshire, nesting.
One of my biggest mentors is Haylie Mills. I adore her. From the moment she was cast as my mum in Wild At Heart I had this feeling I'd know her for the rest of my life. We bonded when we were filming in South Africa because it can be quite isolating on location and missing your friends and family back home. I think she found it hard to begin with. But she's so warm, bright and funny that we slipped into a friendship easily. If I was having a bad day for whatever reason, she'd say, "Darling, come over for a bottle of something and I'll make pasta."
One of my greatest passions is my weekend home in Norfolk. Les Dennis and I owned it when we were married then I bought him out after the divorce. It was Les who introduced me to Norfolk and it's such a special place for me. It's not on the way to anywhere else so everybody who's there really wants to be there. And that gives it this really lovely atmosphere.
The house isn't grand or anything. It's a red brick Victorian farmer's cottage set in the middle of patchwork fields, and my next door neighbour has a backyard that looks like something out of Steptoe and son. But the moment I arrive, usually late on a Friday night, Chris lights the fire, and I climb into my huge claw-foot bath with Lexi and a glass of wine, and I truly feel I've come home. It's bliss.
Awwww if I didn't love you so much Amanda I'd be jellous! ;D