Amanda Holden has revealed that she has got her first tattoo at the age of 53 but that it hasn’t gone down well with her husband.
The Britain’s Got Talent judge proudly showed off her new inking of two tiny hearts on the inside of her wrist while presenting Wednesday’s episode of Heart Breakfast.
The mum-of-two explained that she had decided on a whim to get inked while she was in Hollywood for Halloween with her eldest daughter Holly and best friend, Jane.
Stating that she was delighted with the results, her music producer other half Chris Hughes was less so.
Setting the scene of the big reveal, she explained: "Obviously, my 18-year-old is home, I made a roast dinner. I was pretending to mop my brow because my tattoo is actually just on my wrist. Because, you know, I was sort of slaving over a stove as I was talking to Chris. I had my hand like that, just nothing. Anyway, Holly was losing her mind because she was obviously present for the tattoo moment, which didn't hurt and took less than 30 seconds. Anyway, in the end, we told Chris.
"First, he would say, it looks fake. Second, he said it looks naff. And third, he said: 'Oh, what's going to happen next? Where else are you going to get one? What else are you going to do?'"
Explaining that the two hearts represent her daughters, Hollie and Lexi, Holden said she was also going to get another little heart underneath her tattoo.
She didn’t elaborate why, but it could be a nod to her stillborn son Theo, who died when she was just 28 weeks pregnant in 2011.
Earlier this year, Holden marked what would have been his 13th birthday by sharing a picture of a candle she had lit in his memory.
Holden has spoken openly in the past about the devastating impact that losing Theo has had on her.
In 2018 she appeared on Giovanna Fletcher’s Happy Mum Happy Baby podcast and recalled the unspeakable moment that she was told her baby no longer had a heartbeat.
She said: 'They scanned my tummy... and it was one of the most surreal moments of my life.
"I remember hearing was this woman screaming and shouting and I was thinking, "Where is that coming from?" And it was coming from me and I didn’t even know I was doing it and I was doing it... "The obstetrician was trying to tell me that my baby's heart had stopped beating and was not alive anymore and I just was... saying, 'I don’t know what I’m going to tell Lexi,' and this is the woman I could hear, screaming that. And I didn’t know it was me. It was the oddest, most awful thing." More heartbreak was to follow when she learned that she would have to give birth to her son, just moments after learning he had passed away.
"The weirdest thing was, I forgot completely that I would have to give birth,' she recalled. 'That’s the other thing. You go, "Oh my god I have... get this baby out of me. And I absolutely cannot do that..." I don't how I did that…" she continued.
"The hours that followed were awful. I refused to have a natural birth, because I just thought I can’t do that, I need to have an operation and I need to get this baby out of me, and I was really cross and really heart broken and all the things.
"You just can’t imagine, I was absolutely scared to death and I kept saying to my midwives, "When he comes out, I don’t know if I am going to be able to hold him..." You know, I was so cross, scared to death.
"I remember Jackie [Holden's midwife] saying, 'We are really struggling to pull him out of you, he doesn’t want to leave you,' which was really sad.
"She held him in her arms and Chris left the room. He waited 'til right to the moment and said, 'Mandy, I can’t you know I need to leave the room.'
"And I respected anything he wanted to do, was totally fine by me, and he left the room and Jackie just described him to me and I just said, 'I just need him, I’m still a mummy.' It’s the weirdest sensation. And I just held him and he was perfect."
