The rise and rise of TV’S golden girl Holly!
Holly Willoughby has landed the gig of her career hosting I’m A Celeb! But off screen, she’s proved to be even more successful with a happy family life. So how has she managed to have it all?
No one seemed more surprised than Holly Willoughby when she landed the biggest job on TV last month, filling in for Ant Mcpartlin on I’m A Celeb!. The elated star said, “[I] actually feel like I’ve won a competition to go and hang out on my favourite show!”
Holly, 37, has become one of the most successful faces on primetime TV, and one of the best paid. She even hit headlines last summer, when her This Morning salary was upped to £600,000, in line with co-host Phillip Schofield’s fee.
And her I’m A Celeb! earnings will only add to her £10m fortune, which is topped up with lucrative endorsement deals with Diet Coke and Garnier. She’s also co-written a series of children’s books with older sister Kelly, as well as her own practical parenting guide.
Indeed, “Holly power” appears to know no bounds. The star – who also appears as a panellist on Celebrity Juice alongside best friend Fearne Cotton – has amassed an impressive 3.9m followers on Instagram, and any outfit she wears on TV often sells out in seconds.
But it’s been a long road to mega success. Holly started her career at 14, working as a model for teen magazines, before catching the eye of a casting director at CITV. By 2000 she was hosting children’s TV shows, which saw her win her first TV BAFTA in 2006.
That same year, she joined forces with Phillip Schofield to co-host Dancing On Ice, before landing a role alongside him on This Morning two years later. Their on-screen chemistry and notorious giggling fits have delighted viewers ever since.
And although preferring to keep her private life away from social media, it only seems to have increased the public’s appetite for her. Holly’s recent weight loss prompted fans to ask for her secret, but she endeared herself to them even more by saying, “I try not to let the way I look be the main focus because it’s not the important thing.”
But she admits she never could have achieved such success without her TV producer husband Dan Baldwin, 43, with whom she has Harry, nine, Belle, eight, and Chester, three. Holly said, “My husband and children are the most important things to me.”