Holly Willoughby: ‘My daughter thinks I show off for a living’
Holly Willoughby: ‘My daughter thinks I show off for a living’
Deborah JosephSat, November 14, 2026 at 6:00 AM UTC
0
Her new YouTube lifestyle series, Holly Willoughby Together, launched in July this year to mixed reviews - Together
Holly Willoughby stands taller than she appears on TV, all swishy, honey-coloured hair, in a chic black trouser suit. Even in the office environment where we meet in Soho on a grey November day, she has the kind of cosy wow-factor which makes it easy to see how she dominated British television, from morning TV to glitzy primetime slots, for almost two decades.
She is warm and friendly as expected, skilfully ignoring the loud chants emanating from an Oxford Street protest taking place below. She is not saccharine sweet, though. There’s a quiet steeliness to her which gives her a different aura to the woman I first met 15 years ago on a photo shoot.
She was softer then, but a lot has changed for Willoughby in the intervening years. At 45, she is a mother of three and has navigated some life-changing challenges. After a lengthy reign as the Queen of daytime TV, a series of PR disasters mired her time on This Morning – she and co-host Phillip Schofield were accused of jumping the lengthy queue of mourners (which they denied) to pay their respects to Elizabeth II as she lay in state in September 2022, before Schofield exited the programme in May 2023 when it emerged that he had had an affair with a younger colleague.
Willoughby was the co-host of This Morning with Phillip Schofield for 14 years (pictured in 2023 before they parted ways) - Pixel8000
It had seemed Willoughby’s career might survive the controversies. However, in October 2023 a terrifying plot to kidnap the presenter was uncovered and she resigned from the show, retreating from public life to be with her family. In July 2024, Gavin Plumb was found guilty of making plans to murder her, and was jailed for life. Since then, she has made a tentative return to the spotlight and, perhaps understandably, she seems determined to play a new game by her own rules.
Today, the presenter, here to discuss a new collaboration between her lifestyle brand Wylde Moon and the beauty brand Beauty Pie, wades straight into discussing the impossible expectations put on women as they reach midlife. Not only must they cope with the demands of work and family, but their appearances, too, become a hot topic. Have cosmetic work done and risk being accused of vanity. Age “naturally” and face criticism for “letting yourself go”. Willoughby’s face and body have been scrutinised on television for most of her adult life, so it’s a familiar dilemma.
“You’re never going to keep everyone happy. You’ve just got to block that noise out,” she says. “Once upon a time, [tweakments] used to be everybody’s secret. Thank God, we’re moving away from that kind of thing. I don’t think anyone’s gatekeeping anymore, which I really like. I do talk for a living and I am on screen, so I do want my face to move,” she says. “It’s always about getting that balance right.”
Willoughby, who was born in Brighton and has been working since she was scouted as a model at The Clothes Show in Birmingham aged 14, says she worries much less about judgment of her appearance now she’s not in the studio every day. “When you get used to seeing yourself every day in a certain way, you feel that’s what you look like and you need a mascara when you go out. In truth, I hate wearing make-up,” she admits. “But I do suffer from really bad pigmentation,” (which she combats with Lumecca light treatments twice a year). “So I wear it when I have to, which annoys me. But most of the time now, I’m barefaced walking the dog or picking up my kids from school.”
Brighton-born Willoughby was scouted as a model aged 14 (pictured at the Baftas in London, 2003) - Steve Finn
Whatever her choices and decisions around her appearance, it’s clear Willoughby is at a turning point. Yes, keeping busy, presenting Dancing on Ice and the revival of You Bet! But she’s also betting on herself, bringing those years of television experience to her own platform.
Her new YouTube lifestyle series, Holly Willoughby Together, launched in July this year to mixed reviews (The Telegraph’s reviewer Anita Singh suggested it was “a borefest”). The show features celebrity interviews, beauty, fashion, cooking and wellbeing. Produced by Hungry Bear Media, the company run by her husband Dan Baldwin, it shows her more autonomous direction.
With husband Dan Baldwin, whose company Hungry Bear Media produced her Youtube series - Dave M Benett
As does her focus on developing her wellness brand, Wylde Moon, which she launched in September 2021 when she was still at This Morning. The label, which gives advice on lunar energy and crystals, as well as selling candles and diffusers, was the first sniff that she might be exploring a Gwyneth Paltrow-style post-TV portfolio career.
Advertisement
The business has grown steadily in its first five years, and is now collaborating with members-only online beauty retailer Beauty Pie on a version of its Nurturing Hand and Body Wash and Dreamy Body Moisture Cream. Wylde Moon’s signature English garden-inspired fragrance, (Borrowed From) The Wild has been infused into Beauty Pie’s much-loved cream.
“I quickly learnt that trying to put your fragrance into bodycare is a different world,” she says of how her new venture is constantly teaching and testing her. “I’d already been working with Beauty Pie on other collaborations and thought, ‘It’s going to be hard to get better than their formula.’ So I spoke to Marcia Kilgore [Beauty Pie’s founder] and she said, ‘Yes, let’s do it.’ But I was determined that it would be a scent that lasts all day on your skin, I think I drove them completely mad,” she laughs.
At the launch of her wellness brand Wylde Moon in London, 2021 - Dave Benett
Willoughby describes serial entrepreneur Kilgore, who also founded Soap and Glory and Fit Flop, as “a powerhouse… she’s inspiring to be around. I’m always attracted to that kind of strong woman.” Has she acted as a business mentor? “She tells me you’ve got to have real passion for what you’re doing. Otherwise why would you keep going? You have to really, really believe in it.”
And Willoughby does, investing time in learning as much as she can about skincare, which she admits she knew practically nothing about until she started working with Beauty Pie. Is that why she has put a focus on beauty on her YouTube channel, also? “There’s so much misinformation out there,” she says. “And I think from 35 onwards you go through quite a lot of change. You’re in the throes of being a young mum, and you start to get really tired. Your hormones start to change. Up until then you haven’t really had to think about skincare. You’ve just sort of coped and your face sort of copes. But then suddenly you go, ‘Oh my god, things aren’t bouncing back or springing back. I’m not feeling the same. Maybe I just need to help myself a bit,’” she smiles.
What’s changed in her 40s? “A lot. When I do put make-up on, it’s starting to split so I’ve started using oils for the first time which terrified me in my 20s because I used to get spots on my nose, which were really attractive,” she laughs. “I was a Clean & Clear girl in my youth, tearing my skin off. I thought oils would make it worse. But they don’t.”
At 45, Willoughby’s priorities have shifted: ‘A healthy mind, a healthy body and slowing down’ are her tips for happiness - Dave Benett
Her other unlikely beauty mentor is her 15-year-old daughter, Belle (she has two other children, Harry, 17 and Chester, 12) who is teaching her new techniques and has introduced her to the Sarah Creal Eyes Up Creamy Kajal Longwear Liner in the shade Everyday Taupe, which she’s wearing today and loves.
I tell her my teenage daughter has more confidence than I could ever dream of. Has she learnt anything from her daughter? “Well, she thinks I show off for a living, so I don’t think she thinks I need any help with my confidence,” she laughs. “She’s like, ‘Calm it down’, if anything.”
Their relationship reveals a generational shift when it comes to body image. Having grown up in the Nineties, when the waif trend prevailed, Willoughby remembers looking different to the ideal. “I had a big bum, and I was curvy and I grew boobs and I was definitely not a waif shape,” she has said in the past. But she now says: “I don’t think we were looking at ourselves as much as we do now. Honestly, I just got on with it.”
She thinks the judgment women receive today is in some respects worse. Yet she’s encouraged by the attitudes of her own children. “There are so many different people, so many shapes and sizes. There’s not one way of looking perfect anymore. And I really like that for them. Yes, there’s more pressure on social media but I look at my kids and think, ‘God, they’re not even bothered by any of it’. It’s a much healthier way of being.”
Willoughby’s priorities have clearly shifted. What makes her happy now? “A healthy mind, a healthy body and slowing down. Taking a moment. Getting outside and staying strong and being there with my kids. These are the really important moments to me now that fill my cup, much more than what I look like.”
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
