UK TV presenter Holly Willoughby has spoken for the first time about her year of trauma, following revelations of a plot to kidnap, rape and kill her.
The host left ITV magazine show This Morning in October 2023 amid the threats to her safety, and in July 2024 a 37-year-old security guard was imprisoned for a minimum of 16 years for plotting to bring her harm.
On the eve of her return to screen in Netflix reality show Celebrity Bear Hunt (alongside explorer Bear Grylls), Willoughby told The Times of London it had been a very tough year for her and her family, saying: “There’s no way of sugar-coating it.”
Describing her year of stepping back from public life, Willoughby said:
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“I wouldn’t wish what happened to me on anybody at all — sometimes things go wrong, but you have to keep going for it because that’s all you can do.
“You have to hold on to, ultimately, [how] all this serves its purpose. A lot of the change has been really good, you know? I’ve spent a long time not being able to take my kids to school and… there have been so many assemblies I haven’t been able to go to, so many things I’ve missed.”
Willoughby said she knew she would return eventually to screen, and said her salary (figure unrevealed) for the new Netflix show was a significant factor:
“I’m not saying, how much are they going to pay me for this, and how much are they going to pay me for that? But by definition my work is a business. I’m not going to shy away from saying that. I think, sometimes, when women earn money people see it as a greedy, ambitious thing, but when men earn money? ‘Oh, he’s incredible, I want to be like him!’ I don’t have any shame in saying it’s my business, it’s my work. It’s also all I have known. It’s what I do.”
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