Holly Valance: She came to fame on Neighbours’ Ramsay Street, but
now Holly lives at one of the world’s most exclusive addresses as Mrs Candy, wife of property magnate Nick
By JANE GORDON
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'I am careful with money... I'm constantly budgeting in my head'
Jane Gordon meets the level-headed star who has reinvented herself yet again − as a reality TV judge
The picture of Holly Valance that most of us conjure up, dating back to her 19-year-old post-Neighbours pop-singing past, is of a semi-naked goddess on the cover of a lads’ mag. Nothing she has done in the past decade (acting roles in Hollywood movies such as Taken and in major US drama series such as CSI: Miami and Prison Break, coming fourth on Strictly Come Dancing in 2011) has quite erased that vision of the ravishing young first-generation Australian (her mother Rachel came from Southampton and her father Rajko Vukadinovic from the former Yugoslavia).
But the girl, or rather woman (now 30), I meet today has finally managed to create a new, totally mesmerising grown-up persona for herself. Meet Holly Candy – not just the wife of property tycoon Nick Candy, 40, one half of the brothers behind One Hyde Park (reputedly the world’s most expensive apartment block, where the couple also live), but also the sharpest, funniest female judge to ever appear on a reality show.
Ultimate Shopper, which will premiere on TLC early next month, is a seven-part series in which Holly, stylist Brix Smith Start and fashion photographer and writer Paul Hartnett will be judging the prowess of four different shopaholics in each episode as they compete in a range of challenges.
Mrs Candy’s husband and his brother may have a joint worth (last estimated in 2011) of around £300 million but Holly, who has her own home in Los Angeles, is anything but a gold-digger. The eldest of her father’s eight children (having split with her mother when Holly and her sister Coco were young, he went on to have six more children from two subsequent marriages), she has been paying her way since she was 12 and remains proudly independent.
Warm, funny, self-deprecating and smart, she talks exclusively to YOU about her fear of flying, love of fast cars, thriftiness and how she fell in love with her husband, who ‘may be the boss of everyone else but he’s not the boss of me’.
I haven’t done a men’s magazine cover shoot in such a long time, but the lads used to love me. It’s naive to say that sex isn’t a big part of the marketing machine of the business I was in back then. You have to be attractive in some way, and when I was younger (and cuter!) I did do lots of sexy shoots. I don’t think I will ever do another – but then again, maybe I should.
I have had to self-educate. I knew pretty early that what I was studying at school wasn’t going to come in handy for what I was going to do. Leaving school and home at 16 – when I was playing Flick Scully in Neighbours – living by myself and travelling the world when I was 19 was probably a better education than most people get. I can sit in a room with a bunch of Oxbridge intellectuals and I am OK. I can’t teach them anything but I can keep up.
I love to do new things and to be challenged. I really liked becoming a judge on Ultimate Shopper. I think I was chosen to be the nice one who they could dress like a dolly…then I got on air and all this sassy sarcasm fell out of my mouth. I had to hold myself back. I hope I can get even sassier in the second season.
'I will never do a musical because I hate them. Either sing or act, but please don't do both at the same time!'
My life changed when I met Nick in 2009. I never believed it when people said that sometimes you meet someone and you know he’s the one but, just to be totally cheesy and clichéd, it was like that the first time we met. It wasn’t like, ‘Oh my God, I am bowled over,’ it just felt peaceful, genuine, real and normal – and so nice.
One of the first rules in relationships is that it has to be the man who says ‘I love you’ first. I wasn’t going to say it. Luckily Nick said it pretty quickly and I thought, ‘Thank God!’
Nick is like a naughty schoolboy to my naughty schoolgirl. He is cheeky, fun but also has lovely warmth and a genuine innocence. He is a genius with his work but in other areas I do sometimes have to protect him. I am more perceptive about people and their intentions [than he is] and sometimes he will say of someone, ‘Aren’t they lovely?’ and I will say, ‘No, actually, they are not.’ He loves it – he will come over, give me a big cuddle and say, ‘You protect me, don’t you?’ and I say, ‘Yeah, I would kill for you.’
Since I was a teenager my life has involved travelling. But back then I was always alone. I was so envious of girl bands because they had each other to have fun with and support. I have just got back from five weeks going round the world with Nick. Finally I have what I always wanted – another maniac to come with me.
I am insanely loyal – once you are a friend of mine you are a friend for life. I adore my female friends. Some of them I have known for ever – from childhood, from my days in Neighbours and from my time in London during my music career ten years ago. Then there are friends I have met more recently, such as Lara Stone, Princess Beatrice and my Strictly girls – Tess Daly, Chelsee Healey, Katya Virshilas. I love them all.
'I can be very tough in Nick, but someone has to be - he may be the boss of everyone but he's not the boss of me!'
'Most days I am dressed like an angry lesbian. I am not a girlie girl!'
Simon Cowell has been a friend of Nick’s for over a decade. He came to our wedding last year. I don’t think he’d pick me as a judge for one of his shows – he doesn’t understand my sense of humour.I am not straightforward enough for him – I am tricky and sarcastic. He probably thinks I am an annoying weirdo. But hey, that’s fine.
Most days I am dressed like an angry lesbian. I am not a girlie girl. My friends all say I am such a dude, but I feel stronger dressed in jeans or leather trousers and biker boots than I do in a little dress and stilettos. And I hate pink; Nick bought me a pink scarf the other day. I said, ‘That’s nice – did you keep the receipt?’ His face fell and he was like, ‘Oh, darling!’
I have always had a fear of flying and, believe me, it’s even worse in a private jet. I wouldn’t go as far as to say I would prefer to fly Easyjet but I am happier when I am flying British Airways. I know all the statistics about how safe it is, but it all goes out of the window when I am 30,000 feet in the air and I think, ‘I am not a bird, I am not supposed to be up here.’
Holly with husband Nick, who proposed spectacularly in the Maldives in 2011, below left. With Artem Chigvintsev on Strictly the same year, and In Neighbours in 2000
I love fast cars – I drive a Porsche 997 Turbo – but I am claustrophobic. When I recently competed in the Melbourne Grand Prix Celebrity Challenge I didn’t think I could make it. It was 37 degrees, I was in full leather protective gear with a helmet and a neck brace in a cage in a really confined space. I had to call a healer friend and get her to do some remote healing and send me some [helpful] things to read. I managed to get through it by doing neurolinguistic tapping – something that helps me with flying too. It was a monumental claustrophobia hurdle, but it was so good for me. I was very proud of myself.
I don’t know where my career will take me next but, despite the rumours, I will never do a musical because I hate them. Either act or sing, but please don’t do both at the same time! They would have had to shoot me to get me to see Les Misérables. Just watching the ad made me nauseous.
I am careful with money because you don’t know how long you are going to need it for, and I have to share mine. I look after my mum and my sister very proudly, and I always have, so I am constantly budgeting in my head.
I do as much work as I can for Disability Rights International. I happened to see a report from Ann Curry on NBC News about the abuse of disabled children in Serbia and I couldn’t stop crying for days. So I went to the charity’s base in Washington and said to them, ‘I have some sort of a name and sometimes someone cares about what I do or say, so if you are interested I am at your beck and call.’ I have been involved in various projects and fundraising events for them. And in place of wedding gifts Nick and I asked guests to donate to Disability Rights and another charity he is involved in. I read all their reports and do all I can. It’s pretty shocking what goes on – abuse of the disabled is happening everywhere, right under our noses.
Holly on Top of the Pops in 2002 and in her new role as a judge on Ultimate Shopper
I like my own company – I am very capable and I had to learn to stop that when I got together with Nick. I found it hard to let him do something for me and say ‘thank you’ because I was so used to looking after myself. My mum said, ‘Don’t do that. Men want to look after their women, so let him.’
All anybody wants in life is a companion to share things with – and Nick is mine. Now I’ve got a friend doing all the crazy stuff and it’s great. He gets what I do and I get what he does. That’s it in a nutshell; it works.
I love being a wife – doing the kinds of things I never imagined I would do. Being at home for Nick, looking beautiful for him and preparing meals for him. I never wanted to marry until I met Nick and now I am married that’s it – for ever. At the same time I can be very tough on Nick, but someone has to be. That’s why it works. He may be the boss of everyone else but he’s not the boss of me!
We will have a family, God willing, and when it happens I just want to be a mum. The biggest luxury on the planet to me would be to be at home with my child. Finally at 30 I am coming round to the idea of babies and Nick, at 40, is well and truly ready. I think he might just get his way. I can see it now: I will be the bad cop – the strict one – and he will be the fabulous, fun dad!
If one day we are slumming it, well, then we will just stick together and work even harder. If things went wrong for Nick he’d pick himself up and keep going, and if I have to work on reception at Nick’s little office to pick up the slack then that’s what I will do. You never know what is round the corner.
Hot for Holly
TOP iPOD TRACK? ‘Until We Bleed’ by Kleerup featuring Lykke Li. It’s sexy electro — my favourite top-off (the car, not me!) driving song.
TOP iPOD TRACK? ‘Until We Bleed’ by Kleerup featuring Lykke Li. It’s sexy electro — my favourite top-off (the car, not me!) driving song.
SELF-RESTRAINT OR INDULGENCE? I’m a very healthy mixture of both. I can take or leave anything depending on my mood, although a little dedication to something obsessive wouldn’t go astray!
FAVOURITE BOOKS? The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen and The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge.
STYLE ICON? I know people like to write her off, but Kim Kardashian (right) has amazing style — so polished. It’s way too much work for me, however. If I can put on a nice blazer and stilettos with bed hair I’m happy.
FAVOURITE CITY? LA, baby! It’s Disneyland for adults.
FAVOURITE APPS? Uber [private car service] has saved my life so many times. City guides and Time Out are great when you’re travelling.
MAKE-UP MUSTS? More of a must not. Foundation is not a look — you’re not supposed to see it on. It’s about letting your skin breathe. And I can’t live without mascara.
SECRET AMBITION? To executive-produce a US TV show.
CAN’T LEAVE HOME WITHOUT… My mobile, a Samsung Galaxy S3 — best thing (besides Nick) that ever happened to me. Maybe even better than Nick.
GREATEST LUXURY? Having help packing and unpacking luggage. When you fly every second day it becomes your most hated thing in life.
Holly will be a judge on Ultimate Shopper, which will premiere on TLC on 6 June
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-2330349/Holly-Valance-Life-married-Nick-Candy-reinventing-TV-judge.html#ixzz2UOVPgrr5
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