Holly Willoughby emotionally reflects on 'tough' year

Holly Willoughby has emotionally reflected on her "tough" year for the first time.

The 43-year-old presenter was largely off screen for most of 2024 after making the deicsion to embrace the "important" things in her life with her family following her ordeal when security guard Gavin Plumb was sentenced to life in prison for masterminding a plot to kidnap, rape and murder her.

She told the Sunday Times newspaper: “It’s been a tough one. There’s no way of sugar-coating it.”

Holly - who has Harry, 15, Belle, 13, and 10-year-old Chester with husband Dan Baldwin - insisted it was never "an option" for the horrific situation to overwhelm her.

She reflected: "“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. I’m healthy and I’m happy. I’ve got a wonderful husband and children and family, I’ve got great friends.

"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.”

Asked if there was ever a point where she would have been consumed by the situation, she said: "No. It wasn’t an option. For me, it’s just not an option. For all those reasons I’ve said. That all means too much to me, to let, you know, that be the other road I could have gone down. And look, so many people go through tough things — they just do.

“I mean, every single person I speak to, and it seems more and more currently are going through something, you know? I think that — although I wouldn’t wish what happened to me on anybody at all — sometimes things go wrong, but you have to keep going for it because that’s all you can do.”

The 'Dancing On Ice' host left 'This Morning' after it emerged she was at the heart of the kidnap plot in October 2023, just months after co-presenter Philip Schofield left following the revelation of his "unwise but not illegal" relationship with a young male crew member, and Holly admitted it was a "really simple" decision to make.

Asked if it was a hard decision, she said: “That question is wrapped up in so many things that were going on at that time. But no. That was the last thing on my mind. The choice [to step away] was really simple and easy, actually.

“I knew that I would come back. It was important for me to get back to normality for lots of reasons.”