When Holly Willoughby left This Morning after learning of an extraordinary plot to kidnap, rape and murder her, she found herself with much more time on her hands.
For Holly, who had worked in television for almost 25 years, quitting the daytime TV show was a huge adjustment.
For 14 years, she’d been up at the crack of dawn to sit on the sofa and present the show next to her former co-star and friend, Phillip Schofield. Holly had been ITV’s busiest star and bosses at the network wanted on her screen as much as possible.
It was an adjustment, too, for her youngest son, Chester, who’d been puzzled that Holly no longer went to work while he and his older siblings – Harry, 16, and Belle, 14 –still had to go to school.
Holly had been left badly shaken by the kidnap threat, for which former security guard Gavin Plumb was handed a life sentence in 2024.
While the 45-year-old began to dip her toe back into live television, hosting two more series of Dancing On Ice and Netflix’s big budget reality series, Celebrity Bear Hunt, I can reveal that Holly now believes her future lies away from terrestrial broadcasting.
Indeed, she has turned her back on ITV, the channel where she was adored, and has decided to make a completely new start.
There were reports yesterday that claimed she had been dealt a blow when ITV’s bosses axed the rebooted series of You Bet – but in fact Holly had turned down the chance of hosting it.
Holly Willoughby is working towards a new online show, which she will both present and produce
Holly left This Morning in October 2023 after learning of a plot to kidnap, rape and murder her
The truth is she is currently working on a new digital project which will involve both producing and presenting her own show to be streamed online.
I understand that it might have echoes of her time at This Morning, where she transformed herself from children’s presenter to household name.
The new project, which she is self-funding, is still under development. But Holly has impressive help on hand. She is working with a team at her husband Dan Baldwin’s television production company Hungry Bear, which is behind shows such as Gladiators, and Michael McIntyre’s Big Show, both screened on BBC One.
If she had her every need tended to at ITV, I’m told there is no such star treatment now, that Holly is working ‘hands on’ – and she’s ‘loving it’. Insiders say that they are almost at the stage of planning individual episodes.
‘Holly has done television for 25 years and now she wants to make her own thing,’ says a friend of the star. ‘And now daytime television is very much on the slide and it’s time for something new. She is excited, it is something so new and innovative, hopefully it will work.
‘The television landscape has changed so much, people are consuming content on TikTok and other digital platforms.
‘Holly has seen an opportunity now to start something new which has a future, unlike the kind of stuff she has done in the past.’
Gavin Plumb was handed a life sentence in 2024 after being convicted of the violent kidnap plot against Holly
The source explained: ‘While she still has a good relationship with ITV, she has walked away from shows there and she has no intention right now to go back. She was offered the chance to host You Bet but she declined and there have been other opportunities too: She could have taken them and carried on where she left off when she had that awful time with Gavin Plumb.
‘But Holly has an idea and she knows if she doesn’t do it now, she will never know if it will work. Of course it is a risk, but she wanted a change. Not only will she be in front of a camera but she will be in charge behind it, too, and that is very exciting.’
But the friend added: ‘Of course there is a lot of misogyny towards Holly, there will always be those people who say she hasn’t got a job at the moment or that she’s finished – but they are just bitter, and are usually men.’
Even her former colleagues at ITV – where Holly made her name on the children’s series Ministry Of Mayhem when she was just 20 years old – are aware that their current formats won’t last for ever. They, too, are looking at more digital options.
‘It feels like time to do something new and different,’ muses a friend of Holly’s.
While the popular presenter has largely been off of our screens since she left This Morning in October 2023, Holly does have a small side business, Wylde Moon – which is run day-to-day by her sister Kelly – and sells perfume, candles and diffusers.
I’m also told that other television presenters have seen Holly’s example and are planning their own futures away from terrestrial television. I’m told they are ‘very excited’ at seeing Holly’s new show and seeing how they can follow suit.
‘Young, hungry television presenters know there isn’t a future at channels such as the BBC and ITV,’ says a showbusiness insider. ‘So many of the young stars I know are aware that that’s all done now and are looking at making their own way. There are fewer commissions for shows to be hosted: Basically, the bottom has fallen out of the TV industry.’
Indeed, life is changing for Holly away from work, too. Understandably, there was a time when she was too afraid to go home, but Holly and Dan have recently moved into an £8 million dream property as they make a bid to start afresh. I can’t divulge the location – but suffice to say, it’s all rather idyllic. The couple sold their previous home for
£6.4 million – and a tidy profit, as they’d bought the Edwardian house for £2.8 million in 2011. During their time there, they extended it and installed a swimming pool.
As for Chester, now 11, he might have to get used to seeing a little less of his mum once again.
