Sixteen months after a security guard was jailed for plotting to kidnap, rape and murder her, Holly Willoughby has admitted there was a time she wasn't sure she would ever return to the spotlight.
The 45-year-old presenter, who is relaunching her career with a new YouTube show, said she now knows “what real fear is” after the ordeal. “Everybody knows what happened and it was difficult. It was a really difficult time,” she told Grazia. “It did set me back and made me realise, ‘Right, well of course you haven’t got everything figured out. Of course life is going to keep throwing challenges at you.’”
“Holly Willoughby admits she feared she might never return to TV after a kidnap, rape and murder plot.”
Gavin Plumb, a security guard, was charged in October 2023 with soliciting murder and inciting kidnap and rape. He was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 16 years. Last month, The Sun on Sunday reported that Plumb was caught with a sinister stash of pictures of Willoughby hidden under a mattress in his prison cell. A source said: “Plumb is still obsessed with Holly. The pictures were taken from magazines. He should not have been allowed access to images of her.”
Willoughby said the plot shifted her perspective: “When something like that happens, suddenly everything else gets put into perspective and you know what? I don’t fear what people think because I know what real fear feels like.”
Now she is focusing on the next chapter. Her new YouTube show, Holly Willoughby Together, is set to launch on 28 July. At a launch event, she explained why she chose the platform: “I’ve been away for a little while and my kids, watching my kids how they use stuff now, you know they watch stuff on YouTube, they watch stuff on Netflix — that’s how they do things. I was like, right, how am I watching stuff now? And I was walking the dog and I’d be listening to Spotify or a podcast and I’d come in and I’d start cooking lunch and then I’d be like, oh, watch that now.”
The question remains whether her audience will return with the same enthusiasm — and whether the trauma will ever fully recede.