TIME TO SHINE 'YOU HAVE TO BE YOURSELF ON BOTH SIDES OF THE CAMERA'

AS AMANDA HOLDEN SETS THE SCENE FOR CHRISTMAS, SHE SHARES HEARTFELT HOME TRUTHS AND FABULOUS FESTIVE FASHION

It’s 3pm on a chilly Monday and Amanda Holden is curled up in her armchair at her Surrey home after a wine-fuelled weekend in the countryside with Robbie Williams’

wife Ayda Field and Simon Cowell’s fiancée Lauren Silverman. She’s waiting for her daughters, Lexi, 16, and Hollie, 10, who she shares with record producer husband Chris Hughes, to come home from school and is feeling smug that she has zero trace of a lingering hangover.

“Our nights out used to be more raucous,” says Amanda. “We had a lovely dinner and some good glasses of good quality wine rather than shots, and I got home and watched one of my cheeky Netflix series that I can’t watch with my husband called The Empress – don’t watch it, it’s such rubbish! And I was in bed by 11.30pm.”

In total homebody mode wearing an orange oversized roll-neck jumper, the mum-of-two cuts a different figure on our Zoom interview to the provocative TV presenter we’re used to seeing in debates parking outfits on screen and in the media.

In the past week alone, her choice to go to work braless in a fitted green dress with nipples on show dominated headlines as she unapologetically continues to defy the notion that women in their fifties should dress more conservatively.

But as she opens up about the constant controversy that surrounds her daring style (one of her low-cut Britain’s Got Talent dress choices received 235 Of com complaints) she shows a rare glimpse of vulnerability, admitting that the way she presents herself is her armour to go out and face the world.