For years, Les Dennis carried the pain quietly.
The affair.
The headlines.
The humiliation.
But what truly shattered him was not the Mirror exposé or the public ridicule — it was the private, unguarded sentence Amanda Holden delivered behind closed doors. A sentence he says he will never forget:
“No woman cheats without a reason. I want children… but not with you.”
Les recalls he “nearly fainted,” describing the moment as the emotional equivalent of “a door slamming shut on your future.”
“I thought I understood heartbreak,” he said. “But nothing prepares you to hear the person you love tell you they want a family — just not with you.”
A SHOWBIZ FAIRYTALE BUILT ON SAND
Their romance began in 1995 as a headline-maker in its own right:
Comedy’s reliable national treasure and television’s ambitious rising star.
Despite a 17-year age gap and an industry whispering that the pairing wouldn’t last, Les believed love — and loyalty — would prove critics wrong.
“I adored her,” he says now.
“She was vibrant, talented, exciting. I felt lucky.”
But ambition, fame, insecurity and the pressures of living in the public eye slowly wedged themselves between them.
THE AFFAIR THAT MADE FRONT-PAGE HISTORY
By 2000, the unravelling accelerated.
The Mirror bombshell revealing Amanda’s affair with actor Neil Morrissey was brutal. Public sympathy favoured Les. Tabloids labelled Amanda a villain; columnists dissected her motives. She later described it as a “mistake,” but insisted it stemmed from emotional neglect rather than impulse:
“Women don’t have affairs without a reason.”
Les tried to recover. They sat together on Richard & Judy and stated they were “working through it.”
But privately, the damage was irreversible.
SYMBOLIC MOMENTS — AND HARSH REALISATIONS
Les now points to a small but telling memory:
a plumber referring to Amanda as his daughter, not his wife.
“A silly thing,” he reflects.
“But perhaps it was a sign.”
Then came the stranger tabloid claims — including rumours tying him to Diana Ross — which Amanda herself later laughed off as a simple case of mistaken identity. Les calls them “absurd,” but admits the circus added layers of shame and ridicule.
THE REAL HEARTBREAK: NOT INFIDELITY, BUT FINALITY
It wasn’t the betrayal itself that destroyed him.
It was the clarity in her voice when she told him she wanted children — just not with him.
There are breakups, and then there are pronouncements that rewrite a person’s destiny.
“That was the moment I knew,” he says.
“This wasn’t repairable.”
TWO LIVES REBUILT FROM ASHES
Time, however, did what time tends to do.
It softened.
It calmed.
It separated anger from understanding.
Amanda is now married to Chris Hughes, mother to Lexi and Hollie, and a household name in British entertainment.
Les married Claire Nicholson in 2009 and now has two children, Eleanor and Thomas.
And despite everything, he credits maturity for the peace:
“There’s no bitterness. Forgiveness isn’t forgetting — but it’s letting go.”
A TABLOID TRAGEDY, A HUMAN LESSON
Their marriage remains one of the most gripping — and painful — chapters in UK celebrity history:
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a romance built on optimism
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torn apart by age gaps and ambition
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detonated by infidelity
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and, finally, sealed by one devastating sentence
Today, both have moved on.
But the moment Amanda uttered those words — words Les says hit harder than the affair itself — still echoes as a cautionary tale:
Love can conquer many things.
But sometimes, the absence of shared dreams conquers love.
