Amanda Holden on new Netflix dating show: ‘Everyone should have a second chance'

Irish Examiner

21-04-2025

If you've ever been cheated on, the thought of being trapped in a villa with your ex might sound like an absolute nightmare.
Unless, maybe, Amanda Holden, relationship guru Paul C. Brunson and seven other couples all in the same situation as you, were there too..?
That's the premise of new Netflix show Cheat: Unfinished Business, which sees eight not-so-happy couples, whose relationships have been wrecked by infidelity, reunited in a villa in Majorca, Spain, to see if they can revive their romance.
'It's a relationship show. It's not a dating show,' says Britain's Got Talent judge Holden, 54.
'It's about people who are invested in their relationships and are seeing whether they can hold on to them and make them work.'
During the series, Brunson, 50, who has co-hosted Celebs Go Dating and Married at First Sight UK, counsels the couples and sets exercises to help them work through and ideally, overcome their problems.
Crucially, cheaters aren't demonised.
So while there is a certain amount of drama, and the couples do have to face each other down in a fiery 'reckoning room', the show also provides support that can really help people deal with a breach of trust and move on together.
'There are two sides, and we're very quick to judge. We're a society now that wants to see the bad guy, wants to see the good guy. I think it's very important to listen and to see why people have done what they've done, and then for them to see the reaction of the person that they've betrayed,' says Portsmouth-born Holden, who co-hosts Heart Breakfast with Jamie Theakston.
'I don't think some of the people that had done the betraying had any idea of the impact that had on the person that had asked them to go in the house,' she adds. 'Because of that, they've changed. And so therefore the story changed. So therefore my opinion of them changed, because they do have empathy, and they do have a moral compass that they find through Paul and through the other exercises.' She says it's impossible to really 'sit on the fence' and not have a view ('You will have very strong opinions about everyone in the house,') but she wants people to 'try not to judge too quickly when you start watching the show, because there's a long way to go'.
After all, people can surprise you.
'Everybody was a child once, and everybody's had aspirations and dreams, and so, the people in this villa are good people that made bad decisions,' she says. 'Everybody should have a second chance.'
Holden was previously married to comedian Les Dennis, but their marriage was rocked when she had a brief affair with Men Behaving Badly actor Neil Morrissey early in 2000. The couple later divorced and Holden has been married to record producer Chris Hughes for more than 16 years and they have two daughters.
Professional American matchmaker Brunson, who is now based in London, hosts hit podcast We Need To Talk, and has written Keep Love: 21 Truths for a Long-Lasting Relationship. He says the trick to successful, loving partnerships starts with you. 'You have self-worth, self-esteem, and you're actually actively loving yourself, that's where it begins,' he says.
'Ultimately, what that means is that you have high wellbeing. The higher your wellbeing, it acts as a detractor to people who will use and abuse you, and it acts as an attractor to people who also have high wellbeing.'
For those that have been cheated on though, it could in theory be a pretty triggering show to sit down to watch, especially if you're sharing a sofa with someone who went behind your back. But Brunson is adamant that if you've ever been betrayed, you 'should watch Cheat because you're going to learn so much'.
'You will still have empathy for the person who cheated, and obviously for the betrayed, but then you'll learn the tools to navigate this whole situation,' he explains.
The quick of it is, there needs to be forgiveness. If you have gone through an act of infidelity and there's no forgiveness, you can't build from there. So it begins and ends with forgiveness.
However, that doesn't mean bad behaviour needs to be completely wiped from memory.
'It's probably not 'forget',' says Holden. 'It's like, 'I'm gonna swap lanes. We're gonna have to start a whole new path if we're gonna make this work'. And it's about trying to find that trust again and that safety. Because, as Paul said, once one of you has betrayed the other, you are alone in that relationship and that's a tough place to be.'
In fact Brunson says there are benefits to not forgetting or burying misdemeanours. 'If you can reflect back and say, 'Okay, as a result of that terrible thing that happened, we're now better, we're now stronger, we now communicate,' then it's something that you don't want to forget necessarily, right?' The priority is forgiveness, for both your sakes.
'Forgive, absolutely,' he says. 'We can all forgive.' Even if you haven't had a partner be unfaithful, there's still lots you can take from watching Cheat, especially when it comes to developing emotional maturity – an essential trait for navigating the highs and lows of relationships. Holden discovered just how important listening is.
'Listening and trying to put yourself into other people's shoes – it's a simple thing, but it's not an easy thing to do sometimes. There is so much judgment,' she says.
Brunson's tip for boosting that emotional maturity and tending to your relationship, is to ask yourself: What emotion do you feel in this moment?
'Most people cannot answer that. Most men definitely cannot answer that. And if you cannot answer that, that means you can't tap into your emotion,' he explains.
'If you can't tap into your emotion, how are you going to tap into your partner's emotion? And that's what you're talking about in terms of emotional maturity. To be able to sit and reflect and say, 'What emotion do I feel?' Tap into what that is, what feeling does that create.'
Work that out, be honest, and your relationship might just stay the course, no matter the obstacles – and no trip to the Cheat villa required.
Cheat: Unfinished Business , is released globally on Netflix on April 30