Amanda Holden - On men
Actress Amanda Holden, 36, is back as a judge on TV's Britain's Got Talent. She talks to Shona Sibary about motherhood, marriage and men behaving badly
Britain's Got Talent has been the best job in the world. I feel genuinely 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 tattoo, 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. 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 whole Men Behaving Badly image – it was perfect headline material but a horrendous thing to go through. There are no hard feelings with Les – I wish him the best but we've both moved on.
I wish I'd had Piers Morgan on my side. He was the editor of The Mirror at the time and relentlessly chased me for details when the 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.
- On men
- On her loves and passions
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