10 TV Shows You'd Totally Forgotten Holly Willoughby Presented Before Celebrity Bear Hunt

Yahoo

08-02-2025

After more than 20 years in telly, Holly Willoughby looks poised to be introduced to a whole new audience as the host of Netflix's latest reality offering.
Best known to those of us for her work on shows like Dancing On Ice and This Morning, Holly is the host of Celebrity Bear Hunt, a new survivalist series that sees a star-studded cast of contestants being put through their paces in the wilderness by Bear Grylls.
While Holly is already one of the UK's most recognisable presenters, you might not realise she has a fair few less well-remembered shows to her name, too.
In that spirit, we've had a rummage through the TV vaults to bring you all the shows you'd probably forgotten she'd presented...
Holly landed her first TV gig at the age of 19 in 2000, when she was cast as one of the hosts of CITV show S Club TV.
The magazine series was an extension of the S Club universe, after the success of S Club 7.
Westworld fans might have also spotted that actor Ben Barnes – who played Logan in the HBO series – was one of Holly's co-hosts.
This isn't Holly's only connection to S Club though, as in the same year she appeared in the band's TV movie Artistic Differences as an old flame of singer Paul Cattermole.
After cutting her teeth on S Club TV, Holly also began working on CBBC's X-Change.
She was one of a host of presenters who hosted the daily magazine show in the early 2000s.
Holly actually spoke about her stint on the kids series on This Morning in 2018, when the ITV daytime show began broadcasting from Television Centre in the studio next door to where X-Change was recorded.
During her time with CBBC, Holly was drafted in to front the kids channel's coverage of BBC One talent show Fame Academy.
During the first two main series in 2002 and 2003 and the Comic Relief special in 2003, Holly and co-host Jake Humphrey would host daily updates from the Fame Academy mansion, including interviews with the contestants and judges and behind the scenes gossip.
When the show returned in 2005 for a Comic Relief special, Sophie McDonnell fronted the CBBC coverage alongside Jake, with the late Caroline Flack taking over in 2007.
Holly landed her biggest gig yet when she was drafted in to guest present the hugely popular Saturday morning chart show CD:UK in 2005, following the departure of Cat Deeley.
She appeared on a rotational basis alongside the likes of Dave Berry before new regular hosts Myleene Klass, Lauren Laverne and Johnny Pitts took over in 2006.
It was around this time that Holly was announced as the face of SM:TV Live's Saturday morning successor, Ministry Of Mayhem, which she hosted with Stephen Mulhern and Michael Underwood.
The mid-2000s also saw Holly begin to transition into more grown-up entertainment shows, and she was handed an ITV2 spin-off of her very own in 2005.
Celebrity Wrestling: Bring It On was the companion show to ITV's Saturday night show Celebrity Wrestling, and saw Holly co-hosting with Jack Osbourne.
However, Celebrity Wrestling was not a hit with fans, and the main show was shunted out of its Saturday night slot mid-series due to low ratings, with the remainder of episodes airing on Sunday mornings.
Despite the fate of Celebrity Wrestling, Holly had begun making a name for herself thanks to Dancing On Ice, and continued to front companion shows for ITV2.
In 2007, she was handed Greased Lightnin' – essentially The Xtra Factor equivalent for ITV talent competition Grease Is The Word – which saw Sinitta, David Gest, Brian Friedman and David Ian tasked with casting the roles of Danny and Sandy for a new West End production of Grease.
Grease Is The Word was dreamed up by Simon Cowell in response to the success of the BBC's musical talent shows, which were fronted by Andrew Lloyd Webber.
While it proved to be much less popular than its BBC equivalents, Holly's career went from strength to strength and the following year, Simon brought her in to replace pal Fearne Cotton on The Xtra Factor, which she hosted for two series before leaving to concentrate on her commitments to This Morning and Dancing On Ice.
Streetmate is most commonly associated with Davina McCall, with the hit dating show airing on Channel 4 between 1998 and 2001.
However, six years later, Holly fronted a revival of Streetmate for ITV2, but it only lasted one series. Scarlett Moffatt went on to host another brief revival for Channel 4 in 2017.
Holly was very busy matchmaking in 2007, because as well as fronting Streetmate, she also teamed up with pal and future Celebrity Juice co-captain Fearne Cotton for Holly & Fearne Go Dating.
The ITV2 show saw Holly and Fearne each search for a potential suitor for a singleton, before they eventually had a date with both of the presenters' picks and had to choose a match at the end of the night, resulting in a win for either Holly or Fearne.
Much like Streetmate, it only lasted one series.
The UK version of The Voice has been going since 2012, with Emma Willis hosting eight series of the talent show.
But when the show launched on the BBC, Holly was one of the original presenters alongside then Radio 1 DJ Reggie Yates.
Holly even quit her presenting role on Dancing On Ice to front The Voice UK, but only stayed with the show for two series, before she and Reggie were replaced by Emma and Marvin Humes.
After Christine Bleakley hosted three series of Dancing On Ice alongside Phillip Schofield in Holly's place prior to the final series in 2014, she returned when it was rebooted by ITV in 2018.
Meet The Parents was a hybrid format that mixed in elements of Blind Date and First Dates with a twist – the singleton's parents got to pick a suitor for their spouse.
After assuming the Cilla Black role on Surprise Surprise, Holly also stepped into the late presenter's shoes on Meet The Parents, but it only lasted for one series in 2016.
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