How did a talk with a plumber let Les Dennis know his marriage to Amanda Holden was doomed?
Former Family Fortunes host Les Dennis has admitted he should have known that the 17-year age gap in his marriage to Amanda Holden would be too much for it to last the distance.
Les Dennis should have known his marriage to Amanda Holden was doomed to fail when a plumber mistook her for his moody daughter instead of his wife.
The former Family Fortunes host married Amanda in 1995, but they separated in 2002, two years after she admitted to an affair with Men Behaving Badly actor Neil Morrissey, who she met while working on BBC show Happy Birthday Shakespeare.
Holden was 23 when she married the then-40-year-old Dennis and the actor accepts he should have known their relationship was doomed due to the 17-year age gap when a plumber fixing their washing machine thought Amanda was his daughter moaning about getting money form her dad.
Appearing on his friend Sherrie Hewson’s new podcast Very Very Sherrie, Les said: “One day in about ‘95, we married in ‘95 and we lived in Highgate, the plumber came to fix the washing machine. It was Grand National Day and Amanda came running down into the kitchen and she went, ‘We’re going to have a bet. It's Grand National Day.’ I said, ‘OK, here you go, a tenner.’ She said, ‘I've got to bet more than that.’ I said, ‘Twenty.’ And the plumber looked at me and went, ‘Kids, eh?’
“So yeah, I should have known. Everybody said it to each other but nobody said it to me.”
Despite it ending in divorce, Dennis, 72, doesn’t regret his relationship with Holden, 55, because they did have many happy years together before things went south.
He added: "We were together 10 years and it was what it was. It’s a long time, seven years married and 10 years together. So there you go, it was alright."
Les is now happily married to his third wife Claire, who he met in 2005 and wed in November 2009. They have two children, daughter Eleanor, 17, and son Tom, 14. The ex-Coronation Street actor also has a son Philip, 46, from his first marriage to Lynne Webster.
Amanda has been married to Chris Hughes since December 2008 and the couple have two daughters, Lexi, 20, and Hollie, 14.
Amanda has previously spoken candidly about how she destroyed her marriage to Les by having an affair with Neil Morrissey, and has credited the stage actor for being a huge support to her, despite the fact she was the one who was unfaithful.
Speaking to The Daily Mail, she said: "I brought it on myself.
“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.”
Revealing that it was Dennis who “ironically” helped her through that "dark time", she added: "So the person I’d hurt the most in the world was the one who was there for me."
