Holly Willoughby is about to enter her best era yet

The end of Dancing on Ice marks an exciting new beginning for Holly Willoughby (Picture: Kieron McCarron/ITV/Shutterstock)

Holly Willoughby could be about to enter her best era yet – without ITV.

For the last 16 years, Holly has been ITV’s darling, becoming one-half of the most popular double act since Ant and Dec alongside the now disgraced Phillip Schofield on This Morning.

Their visibly tight bond was unmissable television. Beneath clips of them curling up into fits of laughter, there would be endless comments from fans tagging their friends, writing ‘this is us’.

In turn, Holly quite rightly became TV’s ‘golden girl’, she couldn’t put a single foot wrong.

We got to see her naughty side on Keith Lemon’s debaucherous Celebrity Juice (where she was a captain for 22 series) but she held her own in tough interviews (unless they were with then Prime Minister Boris Johnson) and was pitch-perfect as the best friend a closeted gay man needed when Schofield came out on national television.

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But two years ago, the gleam of Holly Willoughby began to fade – albeit due to circumstances out of her control.

Holly confirmed she won’t be returning for a second series of rebooted same show You Bet!(Picture: ITV)

Signs that her friendship with Schofield was waning became glaringly obvious on This Morning.

In his abysmal TV comeback on Channel 5’s Cast Away, Schofield claimed he was sacked from the show because his brother was jailed for child sex abuse and not because of his affair with a much younger ITV colleague.

For Holly though, navigating her ‘TV husband’ being at the centre of such a colossal scandal was always going to be her Everest.

The public lost trust in This Morning and, through no fault of her own, they’d also lost trust in her.

Then, just weeks later, police confirmed a security guard from Essex, Gavin Plumb, plotted to abduct, rape and kidnap Holly.

Naturally, she stepped down with immediate effect soon after and cut herself off from the public glare.

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With both her life and career in danger, 2023 was the year from hell for Holly.

Already, 2025 is looking so much brighter. Holly’s biggest solo job to date, Celebrity Bear Hunt, was a resounding triumph when it launched on Netflix this year, shooting straight to the top of the streamer’s chart just hours after its release.

Critics and fans loved it. The last thing anyone thought we needed was another jungle show but watching celebs including Mel B, Boris Becker and Laurence Lleweylyn Bowen genuinely risk their lives to be chased around by Bear Grylls was surprisingly fun and will be back for another series – a rare feat under the notoriously ruthless Netflix that loves swinging its axe on series before they’ve been given a chance to grow.

Many thought Holly wouldn’t recover from her This Morning exit, but a number one show on Netflix in 2025 is beyond anything she could achieve on ITV.

On Sunday, it was confirmed she’s quit a reboot of the game show You Bet! alongside Stephen Mulhern after one series and Dancing on Ice is said to be on the chopping block – which could be exactly the news she needs.

Holly’s was a triumph on Netflix’s Celebrity Bear Hunt (Picture: Netflix)

Since splitting from Schofe, Holly seems lost on ITV.

Dancing on Ice is insignificant compared to its nearest rival Strictly and there’s something quite sad about watching her present tired game show reboots no one asked for.

Netflix, however, saw her worth and gave her the perfect new direction. Celebrity Bear Hunt was high-stakes, the celebrities were often in peril and Holly got to swoop in as their maternal guardian angel and finally take charge of a big-budget blockbuster reality TV series without a male co-host.

According to The Sun, her rebrand is only just beginning. While the best ITV could offer her was You Bet! the BBC is reportedly lining her up for a long overdue reboot of Blind Date – and she is the perfect match.

She’s warm, much funnier than she’s given credit for and I would happily let her set me up on a blind date if I didn’t already have a boyfriend to cook and clean up after.

For millennials like me and Holly, Blind Date was by far Cilla’s most memorable show. It came when primetime Saturday night was at its best, with Baywatch followed by Gladiators followed by Cilla and our Graham.

It was trash TV but with a weirdly classy touch and the first time I saw real love actually unfold before my eyes.

Holly’s reportedly lined up to front a reboot fo Blind Date (Picture: ITV/REX)

Holly is a romantic, she has an empathy few other presenters manage to convey with genuine sincerity and will make Blind Date her own for generations who are just experiencing Gladiators for the first time with the BBC’s massively successful reboot.

After his car-crash TV comeback, Schofield’s career seems to now be limited to being pictured taking the bins out, but Holly’s dignified response to his cutting remarks has been to bounce back with silence and huge success on her own two feet.

But ITV simply hasn’t had the space or scope to make the most of Holly. Its Saturday night schedule is booked up with Ant and Dec and hasn’t had a successful new entertainment show since The Masked Singer, which is now in its fifth year.

Just two years after many wrote Holly off, she’s conquered streaming and with Saturday night television on its knees, she could be the one to save it on the BBC.

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