I’m 52 but if you still want to talk about my boobs – bring it on, says Amanda Holden as she opens up about new sex show
ACCORDING to Amanda Holden, after centuries of stripping off, seduction and even a spot of S&M, we Brits have somehow ended up more prudish than ever.
And it’s only in the last 150 years or so that we’ve become so shockable — as she realised while making new documentary Sex: A Bonkers History.
If proof were needed, Amanda points to the fuss over her risque Britain’s Got Talent dresses, which even in 2023 still spark hundreds of complaints from outraged viewers to broadcasting watchdog Ofcom.
She said: “There had always been an amazing appreciation for the female form previously.
“The Victorians, I think, were to blame — in their eyes everything became more sexualised than it was meant to be.
“It’s crazy that when you think of the hoo-ha around some of my outfits now, we’re still there. It’s absolutely ridiculous that it’s still going on in an era when we really think that we are ahead of the game.
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“But as I always say when we talk about Britain’s Got Talent, I’m 52 — if they want to still talk about my t*ts then bring it on!”
Amanda has just made the programme with historian Dan Jones for the Sky History channel, looking at everything from empresses who loved orgies to warring queens who used their bodies as weapons.
Playboy equivalent
But her imagination was really fired by the story of King Charles II, who had private rooms where he kept racy pictures of his mistress, Nell Gwyn. In the raunchiest of them, the 17th Century actress posed starkers as the goddess Venus — so Amanda had a go at doing the same and stripped off for a racy portrait.
A more sanitised version of the result is the closest that any of us will come to admiring it, however.
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Amanda said: “My husband Chris now has the painting, but no one else will ever see it, including the television audience.
“But it felt liberating to pose naked. Certain areas were covered up, but I suppose it is like doing their equivalent of Playboy or something like that, then keeping it private for the person you love most.
“It was a female artist, and we had a closed set, so it just felt absolutely fine.
“And it was only my boobs that were out. I felt looked after and completely comfortable.
“I don’t feel uncomfortable being naked, but I think if I’d been in a room full of people, I wouldn’t have done it. But we were all very well looked after, and it was very discreet.
“I didn’t want to show the finished painting to the television audience only because of the reaction it would get.
“It would just go everywhere, and it just wouldn’t be seen for the beautiful piece of art — it would simply be about my boobs being on show.
“So it was just for Chris. He loved it. It was one of his 50th birthday presents.”
There is an important point at the heart of the documentary, and it is that women often liked sex as much as men did, and in many cases they enjoyed it more.
Also, in many cases their bodies and sexual desire were among the few advantages they had in societies dominated by men.
And though Amanda believes we are now so conservative about sexual matters, looking back through history has made her realise that women still have it better these days.
The mother of two daughters said: “I feel like women may have the upper hand now more than ever.
“I feel that we are very much in control of what we want to do and who we want to do it with.
“I think everybody has more freedom than they did before. And in most countries everybody can choose who they want to love.
“And that’s massively important to me, especially having two girls. I literally just want them to have somebody that loves them. That’s it.
“I don’t care about anything else. I just want them to be happy.
“They have a great relationship with me, so we discuss and talk about everything. And even that’s moved on from when I was younger.
“I could have spoken to my mum about sex and all that but didn’t.
“Every woman still has to be very careful, sadly, and men on some occasions. But I think women are still more the victims. But we are stronger and better and brighter and freer than we have ever been.
“But we still do have to fight to hang on to it.”
Today’s “woke” culture, which leaves many people afraid to speak their mind for fear of being cancelled, worries Amanda as her daughters Lexi, 17, and 11-year-old Hollie, make their way into a world which, she says, has become a minefield.
She said: “Having to watch what you say means you have to lose personality, lose bravery, and I don’t know what the world is going to turn into for my children.
“I just worry that it’s going to be really, really dull. I just want everybody to still have an opinion and just because you don’t share the same opinion as somebody doesn’t mean that opinion is wrong.
“But I feel like that moment is now just shutting down.
“It’s only one opinion and every sentence you say, you have to think about it if it’s done in public.
“That’s just terrifying, mostly for people in the public eye. I used to joke that you’re only one sentence away from ending your career but I think that stands now more than ever.”
And Amanda believes that has implications for young people who want to discuss issues in a world where navigating sexuality and gender is now so perilous.
She said: “You’re going to be scared to upset somebody.
“It’s important to be sensitive and everything else but also we’re all still learning. I’d rather be educated than shut down.”
Amazing job
Amanda’s other recent learning experience has been making the BBC One renovation show Amanda & Alan’s Italian Job, with her old comic chum Alan Carr.
After the first series, in which they transformed an old house in Sicily in aid of charity, they are now making a second series, this time in Tuscany.
Amanda said: “We’re still in the middle of it. It feels much bigger than the last one — it’s more of a restoration.
“It needed everything doing to it. We had a laugh and have been everywhere and eaten everything, because it’s not just about the building, it’s a sort of travelogue.
“But it’s been really hard, this one — we’re both knackered.”
Amanda won’t be drawn on the controversy this year when Alan looked set to join her on the Britain’s Got Talent panel to replace David Walliams, only to be pipped to the post by Bruno Tonioli.
She said: “We love Bruno. I think the ratings for the last series of BGT are the highest for a number of years and it just goes to show he did an amazing job.
“The talent show Mamma Mia! is coming on ITV1 soon, which he’s a judge on. Alan’s showed me some clips and it looks amazing.
“He smashed it and I think, in the end, Alan and Bruno ended up in the right seats.”
Nowadays Amanda is busier than ever in her TV career, with the new history show, the Italian Job and BGT returning next year.
She is part of a growing band of women who are increasingly taking top jobs that were once considered the preserve of powerful men.
After examining female roles in society for Sex: A Bonkers History, she has a theory as to why.
She said: “Women always have the power, however much they don’t look like they do.
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“In the end they will win because women play the long game.”
- Sex: A Bonkers History is on Sky History on September 18 at 9pm.
TV Dan can't bare it
HISTORIAN Dan Jones agreed with co-host Amanda that as a nation we are rather prudish – but he added that he didn’t think it necessarily included him.
However he then proved it most certainly does when he was given a first look at Amanda’s finished portrait.
He said: “She’d had this naked portrait done, or rather, she had sat for the artist, but no one had yet seen the portrait, including Amanda, and certainly including me.
“And so the crew go, ‘All right, you two – clear off, go get changed, reset’.
“When we come back there’s an easel with brown paper over it and they say, ‘We’re going to film this completely live. Dan.
“Just react when you see Amanda’s naked portrait’.
“This is the last day of the shoot, and I finally start clamming up, thinking, ‘Oh God, I don’t know what I’m going to say’. And I’ve got to say something.
“Anyway, 3, 2, 1 . . . Amanda whips off the brown paper and there she is in all her glory, posing as Venus.
“All I can say is, ‘Well, I . . . think you look jolly nice’.
“She’s like, ‘Are you looking at my t*ts and saying I look jolly nice?’ But that was all I had.
“Nothing else, nothing else but ‘jolly nice’ would come out.
“So only when faced with the naked form of my co-host did I finally clam up and became very British.”