Hardly ever are ITV bosses so unanimous of their edicts. However for the previous yr or extra they’ve been unequivocal on one matter alone: they want a brand new Holly Willoughby, and so they want one now.
Ever since quitting This Morning in 2023, hypothesis has been rife as to what Holly will do subsequent and I’ve been advised slightly than return to the ITV fold she is stepping out on her personal, engaged on a undertaking with husband Dan Baldwin’s manufacturing firm.
Enter Olivia Attwood. All gloss and beaming smiles, she’s the relatable blonde who discovered fame on Love Island in 2017 and has since been a mainstay of huge swathes of ITV2’s programming.
So there was each indication the trail to Willoughby’s ITV crown could be a easy one for the 34-year-old.
Though privately educated, Olivia had impressed senior executives on the channel along with her ‘woman subsequent door manner’. They had been all set for her to turn out to be their new golden woman.
However in current weeks doubts have been setting in amongst TV bigwigs.
Whispers that Olivia is maybe not fairly the great woman they’re making an attempt to promote have grown ever louder – earlier than reaching a cacophony this week with the information that she is to divorce her skilled footballer husband Bradley Dack.
To place it mildly, it is a cut up that appears set to turn out to be poisonous.
Rumours have been swirling for a while that Olivia’s ‘friendship’ with Towie heartthrob Pete Wicks has tipped over into one thing altogether much less healthful – and that her therapy of Bradley all through their marriage has been lower than thoughtful.
And he or she appears to not be well liked by her Free Girls co-presenters, or ITV’s hard-working backroom employees.
One well-placed supply on the channel tells me: ‘ITV bosses have spent numerous effort and time in moulding her into one thing particular.
‘However the issue is that many individuals don’t suppose she could be very good.’
Olivia Attwood is divorcing her skilled footballer husband Bradley Dack, fuelling rumours that she is maybe not fairly the great woman TV bigwigs try to promote
Ever since quitting This Morning in 2023, hypothesis has been rife as to what Holly Willoughby will do subsequent. Enter Olivia Attwood
One might say that the clues have been there from the beginning: take the scene from her ITV actuality present Olivia Marries Her Match, which adopted the run-up to her wedding ceremony to Bradley, 32, in 2023.
A number of instances on the present, she goaded her husband-to-be about his top. He’s 5ft 9, whereas she is 5ft 9 and a half.
Speaking to digital camera, Olivia says: ‘We’ve all obtained to make sacrifices. I assumed I’d find yourself with a taller man… we adapt.’
Then within the third sequence, which coated their lavish wedding ceremony on the Bulgari Lodge in London’s Knightsbridge, she as soon as once more referred to the Gillingham participant’s perceived shortcomings.
‘The largest information is we’re lastly getting married,’ says Olivia. ‘Sure, I’m strolling down the aisle to my tall, darkish and good-looking – sorry, not tall – darkish and good-looking Bradley Dack.’
Feedback like this might need been meant as a joke, however brought on a lot anger amongst Bradley’s group of associates, I’m advised. ‘It was pointless,’ says one.
‘It was nasty,’ agrees my ITV supply. ‘Think about if a person judged a lady like that – there could be outrage.’ She does, nonetheless, nonetheless have a loyal fanbase. Her principally feminine 2.5 million Instagram followers lap up her posts which combine extremely curated insights into her life with paid-for plugs.
Soul-baring particulars, similar to a run-down of her surgical tweaks – breasts enlarged, then diminished; lip filler in after which dissolved – enchantment to them.
‘Younger girls like her; they like her honesty about her beauty work,’ says my supply.
This week, the information of her marital cut up was rigorously briefed to a red-top newspaper.
In a meticulously deliberate PR transfer, Bradley was blamed for the breakdown of their two-year marriage, with associates of Olivia’s telling the newspaper he had crossed the road – how so was not detailed – and she or he might not belief him.
No reference was made to her friendship with Pete Wicks, who can be Olivia’s co-host on her Kiss FM radio present, and who final summer time was pictured cosying as much as her throughout a piece journey to Ibiza. On the time, each insisted they had been simply good associates.
Olivia was noticed cosying as much as Pete Wicks, her co-host on her Kiss FM radio present, throughout a piece journey to Ibiza final summer time
In addition to her present along with her now ex husband, she has achieved different tasks, together with Olivia Attwood: The Value of Perfection and Olivia Attwood: Getting Filthy Wealthy.
Sources say she has earned ‘a whole bunch of hundreds’ from ITV, which has funded her current transfer into a wise bachelorette pad in South London.
‘There have been anxious conferences and determined worries that this friendship [with Pete] might scupper ITV’s plans for Olivia,’ one supply tells me.
And with good motive – I’m advised Olivia and Pete are ‘nearer than shut’. One supply who is aware of each events tells me they ‘wouldn’t be stunned’ if the pair had been to return out as a pair within the coming months.
‘Those that work with Pete and Olivia say they describe each other as work husband and spouse,’ they inform me.
The I’m A Celeb star first had a relationship with Bradley that ended earlier than she took half in Love Island in 2017.
Then on the present, she met good-looking mannequin Chris Hughes.
So widespread had been they that – regardless of not profitable – ITV quickly gave them their very own present, Chris & Olivia: Crackin’ On, which documented their life after leaving the villa. On-screen, although, Olivia seemed to be the one who wore the trousers, whereas Chris appeared, at instances, crushed by her calls for.
Many viewers mentioned Olivia’s seeming manipulation and nastiness in direction of Chris made the programme uncomfortable to look at.
Little shock, then, that the present ended with their break-up.
Chris has moved on so far American singer and dancer JoJo Siwa who he met on ITV’s Celeb Massive Brother final yr.
Chris, described relentlessly to me as ‘the nicest man in showbiz’, is alleged to be ‘deliriously completely satisfied’ with JoJo. Olivia, although, is perceived to have made barbed feedback about their relationship on her social media channels, even as soon as suggesting that the attraction between the 2 was purely right down to JoJo’s fame.
Associates of his grew to become so indignant at her ‘nasty’ behaviour that Chris’s workforce intervened a number of months in the past, asking her to cease her commentary about his life. ‘They cut up greater than seven years in the past, however nonetheless she felt she had the proper to provide her opinion about him. It was so imply,’ one mentioned.
I’m advised her popularity has preceded her at Free Girls, which she joined in 2023 as a panellist. These on the present are surprised she takes her personal glam squad along with her to prepare, slightly than utilizing the present’s in-house workforce – a transfer that has left her co-stars ‘bewildered’.
‘Isn’t Olivia the lady who is meant to be right down to earth and regular?’ snapped my Free Girls insider. ‘She thinks she’s method above the remainder of the ladies.’
Even her greatest good friend and private assistant Ryan Kay seems to have turned towards her.
Inseparable, the pair had matching tattoos. Then, final summer time, Ryan lower ties along with her after she was pictured canoodling with Pete in Ibiza.
‘Olivia has been given so many alternatives by ITV to be their famous person,’ says my supply.
‘The nightmare for them now’s that Bradley will get his personal again – and divulges that she’s not fairly the golden woman ITV would love her to be.’
