Amanda Louise Holden (born 16 February 1971) is an English media personality and actress. Since 2007, she has served as a judge on the television talent show competition Britain's Got Talent on ITV. She has also co-hosted the national Heart Breakfast radio show with Jamie Theakston on weekday mornings since 2019.
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 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), as well as BBC One's The Inner Circle (2025). In 2020, she released her debut studio album, Songs from My Heart, which reached the top 5 on the UK Albums Chart.
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Early life
Holden was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, and lived in Bishop's Waltham until the age of four and moved to nearby Waltham Chase, and aged nine she joined Bishop's Waltham Little Theatre Company. She has a younger sister, Deborah Lucy, born in 1972.
She attended the secondary community school Swanmore College. At age 16, she relocated to Bournemouth, before moving to South London to attend Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts.
Career
Television
Holden's first television appearance was as a contestant on the game show Blind Date in 1991.
In 1997 she was a cast member of the Channel 5 sketch show We Know Where You Live alongside Simon Pegg, Fiona Allen and Sanjeev Bhaskar.
From 2006 to 2008, Holden appeared as Sarah Trevanian in three series of ITV's Wild at Heart co-starring Stephen Tompkinson.
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, KSI, 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.
In 2009 Holden appeared as Lizzie, the Ring Mistress, in the BBC circus sitcom Big Top. In April 2009, it was reported the U.S. 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.
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.
Theatre
Holden has appeared in several stage musicals, and in 2004 was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her performance in the West End production of Thoroughly Modern Millie, which closed earlier than expected in June 2004.
Holden finished playing the role Princess Fiona in the original West End production of Shrek The Musical, which began on 6 May 2011. The show opened at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on 14 June 2011. She starred with Nigel Lindsay, Richard Blackwood, and Nigel Harman. Holden departed the show on 3 October 2011, ten weeks earlier than planned, to focus on her unborn child and was replaced by Girls Aloud singer Kimberley Walsh. For this role, Holden won the WhatsOnStage.com Theatregoers' Choice Award for Best Actress in a Musical. In October 2016, Holden starred in a West End revival of Stepping Out and reprised her role when it opened at the Vaudeville Theatre in March 2017.
Film
In 1996, Holden played Pamela in Intimate Relations. In 1999, she appeared as a shoe-shop assistant in Virtual Sexuality. She was uncredited in the 2013 film One Chance.
Radio
In April 2019, it was announced Holden would replace Emma Bunton as co-host of Heart Breakfast with Jamie Theakston, at the same time as it went national on 3 June.
Music
In July 2019, Holden signed a recording contract with Virgin EMI Records. In October 2020, she released her debut studio album, Songs from My Heart, through Universal Music. It reached number four on the UK Albums Chart.
Other work
In July 2009, Holden became a gossip columnist for the News of the World.
From December 2010 until 2012, Holden appeared in television adverts for supermarket chain Tesco. Since June 2012, she has appeared in television commercials for Danone Oykos low-fat yoghurt.
In October 2013, Amanda released her autobiography, No Holding Back, which became a Sunday Times best seller.
In April 2015, she was the new face of the Alpen Brighter Morning Challenge.
In May 2021, she was the British spokesperson for the Eurovision Song Contest. She awarded UK's 12 jury points to France.
Charity work
In October 2007, Holden fronted the breast cancer awareness campaign of Everton F.C. She is a patron of the football club's charity.
On 13 April 2008, Holden ran the London Marathon in four hours and thirteen minutes for the Born Free Foundation.
In September 2011, Holden was sponsored to bake a cupcake for every child in the Great Ormond Street Hospital.
In October 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. Since November 2013, she has presented the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) Animal Hero Awards.
In August 2015, Holden raised money for Jeans for Genes and SSAFA via The Big Brew Up.
In May 2016, Holden posed nude for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in a campaign to promote vegetarianism.
In June 2018, Holden was photographed underwater by Zena Holloway. She posed as a mermaid in an awareness campaign for PETA to highlight the "disgusting treatment" of orca at SeaWorld.
In May 2020, Holden released a debut single 'Over the Rainbow' to raise money for the National Health Service (NHS) during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Personal life
In 1992, while they were both appearing in The Sound of Music, Holden dated George Asprey. She married the comedian Les Dennis in June 1995 at St. Andrew's Church, Richmond Hill in Bournemouth, Dorset. The couple separated temporarily in 2000 after Holden's affair with actor Neil Morrissey. 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.
On 20 January 2006, Holden gave birth to her first child, a daughter, conceived with her then fiancé, Chris Hughes. She married Hughes at St Margaret's Church, Babington, near Frome, Somerset, on 10 December 2008, followed by a reception at Babington House, with former Formula One racing driver David Coulthard acting as best man. After a miscarriage in 2010, she suffered the stillbirth of their son at seven months in February 2011. On 23 January 2012, despite medical complications, she gave birth to their third child, a second daughter.
Holden and Hughes reside in Cobham, Surrey, having moved there from Richmond, London in December 2023. Holden also owns a cottage in Sarsden, near Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire which she has been renovating since September 2017.
In December 2016, Holden's ancestry was the subject of a BBC programme in the Who Do You Think You Are? series. 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. 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.
In June 2010, Holden campaigned to keep a Sainsbury's supermarket out of Bishop's Waltham. Some 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.
Filmography
Discography
Albums
Songs from My Heart (2020)
Singles
"Over the Rainbow" (single in aid of NHS Charities Together) (2020), Virgin EMI
"With You" (2020), Virgin EMI
"Home For Christmas" (2020) Universal Music Group