Every Friday growing up would be chip night for my family. We would watch Bob Monkhouse, doing Family Fortunes, ironically [Holden's ex-husband, Les Dennis, hosted the show for 15 years], and my dad would go down to Vines chip shop for cod, chips and mushy peas. My parents worked full-time, so I suppose we were latchkey kids. During the week we'd get home from school and me and my sister would watch Grange Hill, always making sure the telly was off and the table was laid by the time my mum got back. She would let me stay up to watch the Benny Hill Show because she knew I liked the dancers. I had no idea they were scantily clad. She'd shout me down when she was doing the ironing and give me something little to eat – a cold cocktail sausage, maybe. If ever I was poorly, I'd sit with the quilt and watch either Bod, which I loved, or Jamie and the Magic Torch. Mum would make me egg sandwiches, which I still ask my husband Chris to make for me now if I feel ill. We never had pudding. My mum always said: "If you're still hungry, have some bread and jam", and we would look at her, like: "Are you joking?"
At 13, I became a bit of a Smiths fan and announced that meat was murder, which nearly gave my mum a heart attack. In those days, and I'm 38, so we're talking 25 years ago, vegetarians were only in hippie communes, not Bishop's Waltham. When I was 16 we moved down to Bournemouth and my parents ran a guest house. We never sat around the table as a family after that, except for on Sundays. Whatever the guests were having, we would take downstairs and eat on our laps in front of Coronation Street or Emmerdale.
About once every two weeks, Chris and I will order an Indian take away and watch telly with that. We're addicted to Shameless, and I love Katie and Peter, even before they went through all their sadness – it's great carcrash telly. I've got a little crush on Kevin McCloud, so I'll watch Grand Designs and then Desperate Housewives. If Chris is out, I'll watch Wedding TV, or Don't Tell the Bride on BBC3. I would rather get married in McDonald's than have Chris plan my wedding, but I love watching those shows with a bowl of pasta with pesto. I could eat it all the time.
When we're doing Britain's Got Talent, the caterers always want to impress because it's Simon Cowell. Then, after the auditions, back at the hotel, it will be Piers and I and Ant and Dec propping the bar up. We order cheese and pickle sandwiches and lots of wine and talk about the day. Sometimes it's really hard to wind down – you just want to talk about it – so we have a cheese and pickle debrief.
We went to dinner with Simon in LA recently, and it was a really star-studded table. Chris was sat next to Kate Hudson, and she's talking about museums and art, and Chris is sitting there, jet lagged. When she asked him what we like to do, he replied: "My favourite thing is stinking in bed watching telly." I turned around and her face was a complete picture! She just didn't know whether to be shocked, or laugh, or be revolted.
I came to New York to meet TV execs. It was a completely different attitude to LA – everyone was eating burgers, not salads. They've asked me to come back, and I'm so excited. I'm not a blonde wannabe any more!
