BGT Amanda in £2500 holiday Covid test fury
BRITAIN’S Got Talent judge Amanda Holden has called for an inquiry into requirements for Covid testing before international travel after spending more than £2500 on tests for a family holiday to Portugal.
The TV star, 50, said she was fortunate to afford her break at the start of June during the school holidays, but vowed to “never again” throw money away for the sake of a break.
She said: “We need to stand together, we stopped the poll tax. Getting there cost over £2500 in tests.
“I don’t want to rant on and on about it but I think that is taking advantage of the British public.
“I’m in a position where I can afford to chuck that money. It’s awful. It’s a huge amount of money – that is literally chucking it away. Someone’s taking the p***.”
She said it was “worth” the fee to get away with her family but vowed: “Never again am I paying that amount of money. There should be some kind of inquiry into that.
“It was worth it in the sense that we got away as a family and we were so fortunate to be away.”
She added: “If I’d chosen to I could have come home, and got in a queue at Faro airport and got one for ¤25, but I probably would have caught Covid because the queue was around the block.”
Amanda described the traffic light system as “stupid”, but confirmed her family returned from Portugal before the country was moved from the green list to amber on June 8. “We were lucky,” she said.
Speaking to Alan Carr’s Life’s a Beach podcast, she said: “Half the countries on an amber list… essentially we’d be safer if we went to those countries than we are in our own country, so what the hell,” she added.
“None of it makes any sense.”