Amanda Holden regretted affair behind 'saviour' Les Dennis' back but insisted all women cheat for a reason

Amanda Holden admitted to feeling ‘regret’ after she cheated on husband Les Dennis, but insisted that women cheat ‘for a reason’.

Holden, 52, and Dennis, 70, got hitched in 1995, after meeting on a stage show production of The Sound of Music.

They tied the knot when he was 40 and she was 23, but their relationship was rocked in 2000 after news broke that Holden had had an affair with Neil Morrissey.

After a brief, the couple attempted to reconcile - even appearing in a rare Richard and Judy interview together - however, it wasn’t to be for the couple who split up for good in 2002 and divorced the following year.

Holden has previously spoken out about the fall-out from her affair with actor Neil Morrissey, best known for starring in Men Behaving Badly, saying it was the ‘worst time of her life’.

Speaking to the Express in 2009, she said: “I found the fall from grace incredibly hard to deal with.

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“I can’t bear not to be liked. Then I had an affair and overnight turned into this awful person.

“There are no hard feelings with Les. I wish him the best but we’ve both moved on.”

Holden also told the Daily Mail: "I brought it on myself, I appreciate that, but nothing will ever be as bad again. It was a very dark time. It got to the point where I felt I could hardly breathe.

"Les proved to be my saviour. Ironically. So the person I'd hurt the most in the world was the one who was there for me."

Holden married her second husband, Chris Hughes, in 2008, and now has two kids with the record producer.

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And in a 2013 interview with Good Housekeeping, the Britain’s Got Talent judge also defended Morrissey, who she says ‘got loads of stick’ at the time.

She said: “I don’t believe women have affairs for no reason.

“Women don’t seek sex - we seek love and affirmation. If a woman has an affair, there is normally a problem in their marriage. Neil rightly or wrongly got loads of stick.

“I feel like it was my fault - I was the one who was married.

“I want to change the general perception of him, as he was very caring and very loving and very worried about me because I lost so much weight. He used to cook for me and look after me and babysit the dogs.

“We were thrown together when I ended the marriage, or at least moved out. Our relationship continued longer than it would have done had we not been so in the public eye, because we had no one else to turn to.”