Les Dennis knew marriage to Amanda Holden wouldn't last after comment his plumber made

Here’s a celebrity relationship you may only be learning about today: Britain’s Got Talent host Amanda Holden’s first marriage was to comedian Les Dennis.

The story goes that the former couple met for the first time whilst starring in a 1993 production of The Sound of Music at Bournemouth’s Pavilion Theatre.

Despite Dennis being 40 and Holden being 22, the pair struck up a friendship.

Eventually, this blossomed into a romantic relationship, with the duo saying ‘I do’ two years later.

The lavish ceremony was held in Bournemouth in June 1995, but things took a turn five years later when it emerged the Kiss Me Kate star had been unfaithful.

And according to Dennis, who famously hosted Family Fortunes for 15 years, he should’ve known it was doomed from the start because of what a plumber said to him.

Les Dennis claimed a plumber should have made him rethink his marriage to Amanda Holden (Frank Trapper/Corbis via Getty Images)

In 2000, it was revealed that Holden had a five-week extramarital affair with Waterloo Road and Men Behaving Badlyactor Neil Morrissey.

The pair starred together on Happy Birthday Shakespeare, with Holden later calling her fall from grace ‘incredibly hard to deal with’.

“I can’t bear not to be liked. Then I had an affair and overnight turned into this awful person,” she said in 2009.

Morrissey apologised for the affair during a 2014 interview on *Piers Morgan’s Life Stories*, saying how ‘sorry’ he was for how the situation was dealt with.

“I feel sorry for how emotional Les seemed to become. It was very difficult for him and for that I'm sorry.”

Despite the scandal, Holden and Dennis seemingly patched up their relationship and continued with their marriage before officially calling it quits in 2002.

The pair completed their divorce the following year, with the former eventually finding love with Chris Hughes, whom she married in 2008.

The Wild at Heart icon and Hughes share two children and reside in Cobham, Surrey.

Meanwhile, Dennis - who later claimed that ‘all the hurt that has happened has been healed’ - married Claire Nicholson in 2009.

Years ago, the Liverpudlian reflected on the moment that he ‘should have known’ that his marriage to Holden would never have lasted.

The father-of-three recalled that a plumber arriving at his house to fix white goods had somewhat of a ripple effect.

The ex-couple have since moved on to pastures new (Dave Hogan/Getty Images)

"I remember one day in our house in Highgate, it was Grand National Day, and the plumber was there to fix the washing machine,” he xplained.

“And Amanda came running and said, ‘We need to put a bet on’, so [I gave her] ten quid and she went, ‘Oh we need to put more than that on’. So I went, ‘Twenty?’

“And the plumber went, ‘Kids, eh?’ Maybe I should have known then.”

Despite their split, Holden has said that she holds ‘no hard feelings’ towards her ex-husband.

“I wish him the best, but we've both moved on. I don't believe women have affairs for no reason. Women don't seek sex - we seek love and affirmation,” she claimed.

The Heart Breakfast radio show host has also previously alluded to another ‘brutal’ reason why her first marriage wouldn’t have worked out.

“I terribly want children but I didn't want to have them with Les. That's a horribly brutal thing to say, but when you do, you know you have to move on.”

So essentially, if Dennis and Holden had listened to the plumber, they could’ve saved themselves a lot of time and heartache.

Catch Amanda Holden on Britain's Got Talent tonight at 7pm on ITV1.