I’ve learned the hottest secret to great sex, reveals Amanda Holden as she lifts lid on love life ahead of Netflix debut
SHE has one of the nation’s most recognisable faces – and two of our most notorious boobs, if Ofcom complaints are anything to go by.
Now Amanda Holden is about to go global.
Ahead of her streaming debut on Netflix, she is looking hotter, fitter and sexier than ever — with a whole reinvigorated love life to boot.
Having befriended her American co-star and dating expert Paul C Brunson, who told her communication is the key to brilliant sex, the star has been spicing things up with music producer husband Chris Hughes.
She says: “Yeah, I was getting tips from Paul (during filming) . . . and was really nice to Chris for the week he came out to visit on set because I’d learned so much. I’d made notes.
“Paul is brilliant. I’ll tell you what — and everyone who knows me knows this — I talk too much and I interrupt.
“But I learned to listen more and listen to Chris more, and properly take on board what he was saying.
“He used to say to me, ‘I don’t know why you’re asking me because you’ll just go and do it anyway’.
“And now I say, ‘I’m asking you because I want to make a decision and I really can’t, and your opinion actually it does count to me’. And that’s a win.”
So are the happy couple swinging from the chandeliers more than ever?
“Yes,” Amanda cackles. “I’m working on my communication. Chris is very happy that I’ve done this show and he and Paul love each other.”
The show in question, which launches on April 30, is called Cheat: Unfinished Business.
It sees eight former couples, whose relationships have been torn apart by infidelity, reunited at a glamorous retreat, and guided through their past mistakes by courting oracle Paul.
Paul himself is an impossibly handsome 50-year-old who became a breakout star on hit dating reality series Married At First Sight.
The duo describe filming as “intense” — producers ensured a full welfare team was available 24/7 — but clearly they both had a blast.
It’s like Love Island meets BBC Two’s Couples Therapy, with an idyllic backdrop, and the pair are rightly excited about it.
It makes for compelling viewing, especially if you already like this sort of thing.
Impossibly handsome
So, show guff over, back to sex.
How many times a week/month/year should Sun readers be having conjugal relations, I ask Paul as we chat at Netflix’s London HQ.
“So this is a nuanced question,” he replies sanguinely, despite being asked repeatedly about sex by a complete stranger before 11.30am.
“The reason why is because the average amount of time that couples are having sex in the West is different to the East — it’s about three to four times per month.
“However, the majority of it is low- quality sex. So the question really is, ‘Would you rather actually have great sex, the most phenomenal sex ever, once a year or p*ss-poor, mediocre sex once a month?’”
As I’m mulling the question, hyper- conscious my parents will be reading this interview, Amanda — God bless her — chimes in. “Oh, but once a year doesn’t feel like enough,” she laughs.
“Ah, there’s your headline . . .” (Thanks, Amanda.)
Paul continues: “You can’t get caught up in the ‘three to four times’ amount — you have to get caught up in the ‘how do we make this as high-quality as possible?’.
“You want it to be an emotional connection. I often hear friends telling me they’re in the gym working out their lower back because they’re associating high-quality sex with the physicality of it.
“And while that has importance, what’s more important is an emotional connection. When you’re emotionally connected with your partner, you want to have more sex with your partner.
“So that’s what it’s about. Not working out your lower back. It’s about working on communication.”
Over to Amanda, who shares daughters, Lexi, 19 — a model and currently at university studying English — and 13-year-old Hollie with Chris.
The couple married in 2008 and regularly post loved-up photos on Instagram.
They both look annoyingly amazing, with fans recently starting a thread on how young they look.
Many compared the 51-year-old dad to a Disney prince.
Perhaps it’s little wonder, then, there is still a spark in the bedroom. The pair enjoy regular “Netflix and chill nights” — Gen Z and millennial code for, erm, naked stuff.
When you’re emotionally connected with your partner, you want to have more sex with your partner
Paul C Brunson
She says: “I think because Chris and I are busy, I look forward to seeing him, and I still get butterflies when I see him.
“We do date nights once a week, and I look forward to it and I dress up. This happened on a couple of days when it was really rainy back in the winter — and we actually cancelled dinner and watched Netflix and ordered a takeaway.
“And I just went, ‘Oh my God, we’ve got no kids. It’s so nice to talk to you’. It was hot because it was just me and him.
“And that’s how we do it. That is the secret.
“We actually call these date nights something else, but I’ll tell you that off-camera.” Off-camera, being the hard-hitting, ruthless journalist that I am, I completely forget to ask Amanda what these “sexy-time” date nights are called.
So as I start writing this up, I text her to ask.
“My date night for conjugal is something I can only tell you verbally without a tape recorder and without it being in black and white.
‘I try to keep her safe’
“But I’m perfectly happy for you to print what I’ve said above!”
Alas, my Pulitzer Prize must wait a little while longer.
At the time of our interview, another Netflix show, Adolescence, is on everyone’s radar.
With four kids between them, Paul and Amanda agree on the importance of the show in raising awareness about the amount of time teens spend staring at a screen, and monitoring how and what they’re watching.
Refreshingly, they have both instigated phone bans in the home after a certain time, and sit down as a family together to watch TV without distraction.
Amanda adds: “I think it’s just about keeping your children as informed and aware and as safe as you possibly can. And I was honest with my youngest — I said, ‘You know, I have the code to your phone. Mummy goes through your phone’.
“I just try to keep her as safe as I can, while I can.”
When Amanda isn’t Netflix and chilling, or, indeed, on Netflix, she remains one of the hardest-working women in showbusiness.
As well as her widely listened-to daily breakfast show on Heart FM, she is a mainstay judge on Britain’s Got Talent and recently landed a fourth series of her hugely popular BBC1 travel/DIY show with Alan Carr.
I didn’t understand the term ‘national treasure’ before I met Amanda but it’s someone who is beloved by a nation
Paul C Brunson
Famously, every year on BGT the presenter racks up scores of Ofcom complaints for showing off too much cleavage — and she once revealed she’d been given her own “committee” to decide whether her dresses are suitable for family viewing.
She has also embarked on an embryonic career as a sporting fashion designer — helping Paul to create the award-winning kits for Sutton United, the National League side he co-owns.
Although she may need to brush up on her football terminology: “I helped design the costumes! I told you those colours went together, they look fabulous!” Whisper it, but at the age of 54 Amanda Holden could well be entering her national treasure era.
Certainly Paul thinks so.
“Let’s keep it real,” he says. “I didn’t understand the term ‘national treasure’ before I met Amanda but it’s someone who is beloved by a nation. Truly, she is.”
Is Amanda, who started her TV career as a contestant on Blind Date when she was 19, offended? Isn’t national treasure status reserved for someone a little, erm, older?
“No, no, I’ll take it,” she laughs.
Until then, the star has a whole new Gen Z audience to win over.
And I wouldn’t bet against her doing it.
- Cheat: Unfinished Business is out on Netflix from April 30.