Amanda Holden is a British television presenter and personality who is perhaps best known for her role as a judge on the ITV show Britain’s Got Talent, the televised talent competition created by Simon Cowell. Amanda Louise Holden was born on February 16, 1971, in Portsmouth, Hampshire, United Kingdom. She attended Swanmore Secondary School and, at the age of nine, joined Bishop’s Waltham Little Theatre Company. When she was sixteen she began attending Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts. Holden’s television credits include Kiss Me Kate, The Grimleys, Hearts and Bones, EastEnders, and Smack the Pony. Amanda Holden has been married twice, first to comedian Les Dennis in 1995; the couple separated and later divorced due in large part to Amanda’s affair with actor Neil Morrissey. In January of 2006, Holden gave birth to a daughter with her future husband Chris Hughes, a record producer.

The couple was married in Somerset in December of 2010. Holden and Hughes had a second daughter in 2012 and live in a mansion in Surrey; they also own a cottage in the Cotswolds which has been under renovation since 2017. Amanda Holden is a celebrity ambassador for Battersea Dogs and Cats home and has been a vegetarian since the age of thirteen.