Amanda Holden has told how a therapist helped her to stop panicking about her own mortality after she nearly died giving birth to her second daughter.
The Britain's Got Talent judge, 44, suffered a stillbirth when her son, Theo, died when she was 28 weeks' pregnant, and later, during the birth of Hollie, doctors induced a coma under general anaesthetic for three days.
Amanda told Good Housekeeping magazine: “My therapist told me I had no more tools or coping mechanism left. She was very good at giving me sentences to say to myself to make me stop panicking about my own mortality.
"I think you have none of these worries unless you've got children. If it had just been me and (husband) Chris (Hughes) and I'd died, it would have been awful for him but nowhere near as bad as a child losing their mother.
“It makes you suddenly think, I have to live. I’ve got to live, but I’ve got to try and live a good, happy life for me too and I think that’s why I faced up to the fact that I needed to speak to somebody. It was a really good thing.”
The mother-of-two said that she was not trying for another child.
“I’m not allowed. I would be dead the next time. And I think Chris would say you can have them but you’re not having them with me. I’ve got the two I’m supposed to have. I just had to complete my family to feel like I could be me,” she said.
As well as Britain’s Got Talent, Amanda is currently filling in for Holly Willoughby while she is on maternity leave, on ITV breakfast show This Morning.
But she said that she could return to acting: “There is a sitcom being written for me, which is in its early stages. It's very funny and very out there. My character is a bit like Patsy from Ab Fab.
“I always thought I should be Joanna Lumley's lovechild! I almost did a play last year but I chickened out. It was very heavy and about the death of a child. I need to come away from all of that stuff now."
Amanda also revealed her beauty secrets – collagen waves and big eyebrows.
“Hot rollers are put all over your face and it plumps it up and lifts it. It’s made my skin puffier in a good way… Growing your eyebrows makes you much younger, apparently. So I've got very bushy eyebrows.”
She said of her love for her husband: "The minute I met him, my life changed so much for the better. He has a great perspective on life. He makes me stop, he’s given me my children and literally stood by my death bed and I really fancy him…
"How I feel about Chris still feels new. We try to do date night but it fails dismally. We’re doing everything that you could possibly do wrong in a marriage! We’re ignoring date nights and watching box sets but it’s working! We feel stronger and it just feels new. Chris is very funny, and in the face of adversity he’s so bad and verging on politically incorrect!"
Amanda added: “When I’m not working, I am a stay at home mum. I do absolutely everything – although not my own ironing. I vowed at 13 that I wouldn't do that! I used to have to do it for 50p extra pocket money a week.
“I used to say to my nan back then, ‘I am never doing my own ironing.’ She used to say, ‘You will for your husband, dear’. Chris went to boarding school so he’s a fantastic ironer. When we’re on holiday, he always asks, ‘Do you want anything ironing, Mandy?’”
Britain's Got Talent continues on Saturdays on ITV.
Press Association
