From the comfort of a battered old Chesterfield armchair in a north London studio, Holly Willoughby is reliving one of her worst television moments – interviewing the then prime minister Gordon Brown.
‘I was dreadful,’ she says of the interview which took place in 2009, just two months after she’d joined ITV’s This Morning alongside Phillip Schofield.
‘The worst thing was that so many people in the industry had said I couldn’t do that job. I wanted to prove myself.
‘I sat with the producers, discussing it for ages. Then when it came to the interview I was trying to read out questions from the script.
Holly Willoughby relives her most embarrassing moments including interviewing the then Prime Minister Gordon Brown
‘I was saying words I didn’t even understand, mangling up sentences and completely floundering. I was awful.
‘Various critics had said, ‘She’ll be OK with the fluffy fashion pieces but how will she do a serious political interview?’ And they were right.
‘Presenting that show is about being able to do everything from light to serious. I wasn’t up to the job.’
Yet 13 years on, Holly, 41, has proved everyone – including herself – wrong. She is not only the queen of ITV daytime but one of the most successful female presenters, fronting prime-time shows from the BBC’s The Voice UK to ITV’s Surprise, Surprise and Dancing On Ice.
In 2018, when she replaced Ant McPartlin to co-host I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! alongside Declan Donnelly (not an easy gig), she won rave reviews from viewers.
Right now she’s fronting two major new entertainment shows. The BBC’s Freeze The Fear With Wim Hof sees the Dutch extreme athlete teach stars including Tamzin Outhwaite, Strictly’s Dianne Buswell and sports presenter Gabby Logan how to conquer fear through exposure to ice-cold conditions.
Then next month she fronts The Games, in which celebrities including ex-Strictly pro Kevin Clifton and newsreader Lucrezia Millarini compete in a series of Olympic-style sports disciplines.
The TV presenter, 41, reveals how she struggled at school with dyslexia and would mumble into her sleeve, afraid that anything she said would be ‘stupid’
‘I am not and will never be perfect as a presenter,’ she says. ‘I don’t try to be perfect any more because it really doesn’t matter.
‘I listen to the production team but I’ll then ask the questions I want to ask, things I think are important. Even if I don’t say things exactly right or words still come out wrong – because I’m dyslexic – people understand where I’m coming from.
‘They get me. That’s given me confidence, changed me …….