LISTEN:After a year from hell which saw her quit This Morning after the horrific kidnap plot against her, Holly Willoughby would have been forgiven for shunning the spotlight forever.
Days later, the 'shocked and distraught' star took to Instagram to announce she 'would not be returning' to the sofa. Insiders said she was already disillusioned by 'chaos' behind the scenes, but the plot proved the final motivation. Netflix’s UK content chief, Anne Mensah, reportedly said the company wants to appeal to ‘everybody, from your mum to your next door neighbour’, with Holly surely the perfect face for that.
‘I want Wylde Moon to be a place where I can share the things that I love, the lessons that I’ve learnt, the things I see and instantly want to share with others,’ Holly said after launching the brand. However, she did not appear as a witness at Plumb's trial, which ended with a jury convicting the 37-year-old for soliciting murder, incitement to kidnap and incitement to rape.
PODCASTEXCLUSIVE Listen to The Trial, The Mail's award-winning True Crime series now But their relationship soured after she learned of his secret relationship with a younger colleague, with friends saying it was 'traumatic' for her to discover his dishonesty. Holly took an extended half term break while dealing with the revelations and returned to the This Morning sofa on June 5.
Yet any career considerations would have seen utterly irrelevant after police approached Holly in October to tell her she had been the target of a rape and murder plot.