Willoughby talks of ‘tough’ year after kidnap plot

Holly Willoughby has spoken about her “tough” year after a man was jailed for plotting her kidnap, saying: “Nothing can prepare you for something like this.”

The former This Morning host left the show in October 2023 after the story emerged, saying she wanted to spend more time with her family.

Willoughby admitted in his first interview for over a year that it was “really hard” for him to talk about what had happened.

But she said she has “decided to focus on everything that is positive and good” and that she is healthy and happy.

Gavin Plumb was last summer pleaded guilty Following a trial at Chelmsford Crown Court, of soliciting murder and inciting rape and kidnapping. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 16 years.

Willoughby, who waived his right to anonymity in connection with the case, told Sunday Times’ Style Magazine: “It’s been tough. There’s no way to sugarcoat it.”

“When something like this happens, you have to take a decision,” the 43-year-old said.

“You can either decide, OK, I can take this on board and have it impact absolutely all aspects of my life, or I can choose to go, let’s focus on all those things. On all the important things that are positive and good.”

Speaking about her “wonderful” husband, children, friends and family, she said: “You have to go: I choose to move forward positively and trust all the people there – the police, the court, the judge, the jury. – People have to play their part on all of those and that’s what I have to do.”

Willoughby said it was “not an option” for him to let the situation dominate his life.

He told interviewer Polly Vernon, “So many people go through hard things – they just do.”

She added, “I wouldn’t want what happened to me to happen to anyone else though – sometimes things go wrong, but you have to keep pushing through it because that’s all you can do.”

When she left This Morning, her co-host of more than a decade, Phillip Scofield, had quit earlier that year due to an affair with a former colleague, which she described as “silly but not illegal”. Was.

Asked if walking away from the program was scary, Willoughby said: “That question is wrapped up in a lot of things that were going on at the time.

“But no. It was the last thing on my mind. The choice was actually really simple and easy.”

A lot of the changes have been “really good,” Willoughby said, because she can do the school run and attend assemblies.

“Without realizing it, I feel like I’ve lost that. It’s really nice to have some of that back.”

He did not discuss Scofield in the Sunday Times interview.

After spending some time away from work, Willoughby has resumed hosting duties on shows like Dancing on Ice, with his next venture being Netflix’s Celebrity Bear Hunt.

Despite describing herself as “a weakling” compared to co-host Bear Grylls, she admitted: “I’m made of pretty tough stuff.

“I have that thing where I’d definitely like to take the easy option, but I know, if I have to do that, there’s something to it.”