We’re gearing up for the new series of The Voice, and co-host Holly has promised us she’ll be getting her Willoughboobies out
The first thing people think of when they hear the name Holly Willoughby is Those Curves.
So get ready for a shock – if you tune into the launch of The Voice next Saturday night, you will see her looking casual in a series of high-necked jumpers.
Don’t panic though, normal service will be resumed in the later stages of the second series with her “dressed up” in the manner to which we are accustomed.
“It’s fine, I am guaranteed to be naked for the last three shows,” she jokes after we’ve watched a taster tape of incredible new singers from the BBC series. Check out this gallery of Holly’s boobiest moments from series one of The Voice:
When I cheekily suggest a bikini might be the best idea, because of the boiling hot studio The Voice’s live stages are recorded in, she laughs: “No, I don’t think anyone would want to see that. Basically are we going to see my boobs again? It’s a strange question because I only dress appropriately for the show I’m doing – I think – though others may beg to differ.
“We’ve already filmed quite a bit of it and, yeah, there are some nice dresses. I’m not worried about the reaction. I never and I won’t wear anything I don’t really like.
“I don’t mind people fixating on my cleavage and I mainly blame Keith Lemon for bringing it into the main arena so people feel the need to talk about it all the time. But it’s fine, it’s fine – they’re only boobs.”
Celebrity Juice host Lemon – or Leigh Francis to use his real name – introduces her as “Holly Willoughbooby” on his show and regular viewers are used to the comedy host focusing on her body, a lot.
But away from glitzy shows and red carpets, there is another side to Holly viewers don’t see – the working mum. He is not yet four years old, but Holly’s son Harry already has his favourite TV show. Unfortunately his mum is no longer on it.
“Typically I don’t do Dancing On Ice now, but he has started to watch it and he has asked if he can go,” she says.
Holly is the ultimate high profile working mum and next weekend she is back with Reggie Yates for BBC1’s answer to The X Factor, The Voice.
She also continues to front ITV1’s This Morning with Phillip Schofield, hosts a revamped Surprise Surprise on the channel – as well as captaining a team for Lemon on his ITV2 show.
Despite all this, her children Harry and his little sister Belle come first. “I don’t feel guilty at all saying, ‘I have to go’ as it’s for me to spend time with the kids,” she says, referring to dashing off at the end of some Voice recording sessions and This Morning meetings.
“And I do find time to sit still at weekends, it’s real family time together. Sunday is our time and we are a family then. We do a lot of big walks and we come back and sit on the sofa and watch a film. That’s my time to chill. I love that thing of being ‘as one’.”
Mum Holly admits that, although she is a host on The Voice, she is perhaps not as up-to-speed on new music as she might be. She gets up at 6.30am each day when her “three-year-old alarm clock” Harry wakes her. She is on the go until the afternoon, and then comes home and plays with her kids before putting them to bed. It doesn’t leave much time for an iPod or CDs.
“I listen to a lot of Classic FM. I used to listen to music all the time, I was always going to see gigs and bands,” she says referring to before she gave birth to Harry in May 2009.
Thankfully Holly has heard plenty of new musical talent whilst filming in Manchester for the new series of The Voice. Last year the show started brilliantly with TV audiences of up to 12 million.
But some critics felt she and co-host Reggie were not there enough for singers after auditions. Holly says: “It’s not about me or Reggie, but what they do in the audition. The last thing they want is us saying ‘how do you feel?’. There is a time and a place for that and the live shows is where we come into our own.”
Born in Brighton, Holly was voted Most Fanciable in 1997, at Burgess Hill School for Girls in West Sussex. She was just 14 when she was talent spotted by the Storm modelling agency
She went on to do shoots for Rimmel cosmetics and Pretty Polly tights, and by the time she was in the sixth form she was advertising bras. She says: “As soon as I hit 17 my hips went ‘pang’, the boobs went ‘pang’.” Her big break came in 2004, co-presenting ITV’s Saturday morning show Ministry of Mayhem.
As well as The Voice, Holly is passionate about working on ITV1’s This Morning with good friend Phillip Schofield. She says: “It’s a labour of love. We give everything to it. I love him to death.”
On top of everything, Holly is about to become a published author this summer after co-writing children’s book L’Etoile: School For Stars with sister Kelly.
So as The Voice heads to the screens, Holly’s only problem is she can’t commit to more TV, despite offers flooding in. She says: “I just want to stay doing what I’m doing – while still being a good mum and a good wife.”
The Voice starts next Saturday night on BBC1 at 7pm.