Holly Willoughby says she wasn’t ‘homesick’ while filming Celebrity Bear Hunt
Holly Willoughby has opened up about filming Celebrity Bear Hunt with Bear Grylls, which took them and a cast of celebrities to the Costa Rican jungle for the "ultimate survival challenge".
The former This Morning host, 43, is the co-host of the forthcoming Netflix series, which will be released on 5 February. However, despite being dropped into a jungle in Central America for three weeks, she said she didn’t feel "homesick".
Speaking to The Sunday Times, Willoughby said she thought her absence would have a bigger impact on her family in terms of scheduling and logistics. She is married to Daniel Baldwin, with whom she shares three children, Harry, 15, Belle, 12, and Chester, nine.
"I always thought, if I disappeared and left, you know, the wheels would fall off the family, the kids wouldn’t end up going to school on time. [But] Dan coped brilliantly, did all that. The kids were fine," she said.
"I really enjoyed it. I thought I was going to be really homesick, but - no offence to my family - I absolutely wasn’t."
Celebrity Bear Hunt will see Grylls "hunting" down stars including Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, Lottie Moss, Shirley Ballas, Melanie Brown, Boris Becker, and more.
Willoughby said one of the big reasons for agreeing to co-host the show with Grylls was that her children are "massive fans" of the TV survivalist.
"Having kids at different ages makes it quite hard to find something to watch all together.
"Celebrity Bear Hunt has got the action and adventure that my boys will love but also the reality, relationships and dynamics that Belle and I are going to love watching together," she added.
Willoughby said she had to have a "strong word" with herself to face her fears while making the show, adding that Grylls helped her get through it.
"There were a few moments on this show where I had to dig deep and have a strong word with myself.
"At those times, it was good to have someone like Bear Grylls next to you saying, being brave is about using that fear, harnessing it, and doing it anyway.
"Those words really get in your head and help you, he has definitely given me some transferable skills and being in nature allows you to put your thinking down for a bit and be present."
Willoughby has stayed largely out of the public eye since October 2023. She resigned from This Morning after 14 years of presenting because police discovered a 37-year-old security guard named Gavin Plumb had plotted to kidnap, rape and kill her.
Police foiled Plumb’s plan and he was convicted and sentenced to life with a 16-year minimum term. Prior to her decision to step away from This Morning, Willoughby’s long-time co-host Philip Schofield had also resigned after it came to light he had an affair with a younger colleague.
Her interview in The Sunday Times, her first in more than a year, marked her big return to TV screens with Celebrity Bear Hunt. Willoughby also recently went back to hosting Dancing on Ice.
Speaking about the case, Willoughby said: "Nothing can prepare you for something like that. When something like that happens, you have a decision to make.
"You either decide, right, I can take this on board and it can absolutely affect all aspects of my life. Or I can make a choice to go, let’s focus on everything that’s positive and good, all those important things."
She praised her family and friends, and said she is grateful for being "healthy and happy". "You have to go: I choose to positively move forward and rely on all those people - the police, the court, the judge, the jury - all those people to do their role. And that’s what I had to do."
Read more about parenting and family:
Five ways parents can teach ‘kindness’ as it is named children’s word of the year (Yahoo Life UK, 4-min read)
Prince William's after-school parenting story is soooo relatable (Cosmopolitan, 2-min read)
A quarter of parents lie to get their child into desired school (The Independent, 3-min read)
