Amanda Holden was moved to tears as she was reunited with the midwife who saved her life on Britain’s Got Talent: The Ultimate Magician.
The TV star reprised her judging role on the one-off special of the ITV talent show alongside Alesha Dixon, David Walliams and world renowned magician Penn Jillette.
In Sunday’s episode, the 41-year-old was overcome with emotion when BGT 2016 winner Richard Jones named the healthcare professional Holden credits for saving her life on a card before bringing her on stage.
Jones told Holden to think of someone in her life who was “very special” and who had gone “above and beyond... when you needed it most”.
Visibly emotional, the TV judge uttered Pippa Nightingale’s name before the former soldier turned over a card to reveal the name of the midwife.
Going one step further, the magician then opened a box on stage from which she stepped out giving Holden a hug.
The actress took to her Instagram last week to give fans a glimpse at the emotional moment before it aired.
She wrote: “This Sunday night is an emotional one for me on @bgt -in fact I was totally floored .. magic isn’t always known for being emotional but there were tears ! Lots of them.
“It made me reflect back on just how many of the ups & downs of my life bgt has has got me thru. It’s never been just a talent show for me.”
The TV star has previously credited the NHS with saving her life after she died for 40 seconds and fell into a four-day coma in 2012, when her placenta attached to a main artery and left her haemorrhaging during the birth of her daughter Hollie, now 10.
Reflecting on the traumatic experience on her Heart Breakfast radio show in 2020, Holden said: “When I gave birth to Holly, my eight-year-old daughter who I know is listening, she was an emergency and I haemorrhaged basically.
“I actually did pass away for 40 seconds and then I went into a coma, but the NHS were there holding my hand and my husband’s hand, who – I feel sorry for him to be honest, he went through it watching it all!”
Holden also described the “horrendous” health incident on Giovanna Fletcher’s Happy Mum Happy Baby podcast and said how her husband went “through hell and back”.
She shared: “What they hadn’t detected was that my placenta was attached to my main artery behind my bladder and I basically haemorrhaged and no amount of blood that I had on standby was going to do it.
“I was even on the recycling thing where you can recycle your own blood... Well, it was all over the floor and yes and then what followed after that was horrendous for [husband] Chris. I knew nothing about it, I was out cold for four days.
“Chris was told he might have to prepare Lexi for mummy not coming home so Chris has been through hell and back.”
