AMANDA PLATELL: We should be in awe of Amanda Holden for stripping off at 53… THIS is the definition of a hard-working mum

Amanda Holden is slaughtered on social media for stripping off in the Heart Radio studio during a broadcast to take part in a life-drawing exercise.

‘Never enough attention is there?’, writes one of her critics. ‘Anything for front page news,’ says another, who also cruelly tells her to ‘get a grip’, and asks ‘why do you need to do this for likes, it really is pathetic?’ One piously reminds her that as a mother of two teenage daughters she should be ‘ashamed’.

Crikey. If I looked as good as Amanda in the nude, I’d never put my clothes on again!

Thankfully she had her 2.2million devoted Instagram fans to defend her from the venomous Twitter/X haters over what was a light-hearted stunt by the beautiful 53-year-old mum-of-two.

Amanda simply thought she’d come back with a bang from an Easter holiday with her family in the Maldives. She revealed to the Mail that she wasn’t completely naked but kept on her underwear: ‘There is no way I would get my full kit off with the boys in the studio!’

The presenter also stripped naked to mark her 53rd birthday. Instead of attacking, we should be celebrating her, writes Amanda Platell 

It was all just a bit of fun, and what’s wrong with that? In what has become a deeply depressing world, what would you rather listen to at 6.30am: Benjamin Netanyahu justifying his merciless war in Gaza, or a bit of naked nonsense from a giggling Amanda with fellow presenters and crew who were in on the stunt in the studio?

As co-hosts Jamie Theakston and Ashley Roberts had a go at drawing her, Jamie, 53, said: ‘Slightly distracting… Amanda’s in the corner of the studio without any clothes on – which is a first not for her of course, but for the rest of us.’

Ashley, 42, then interjected: ‘She looks amazing!’

Let’s not forget that no one batted an eyelid, and no one self-combusted in indignation, when Jamie himself got naked on the show nearly a year ago, claiming someone had stolen his clothes.

Oh, how we laughed. A jolly jape when blokey Jamie stripped off – but a disgrace to womanhood when Amanda did the same this week. To which I would say to all her detractors: Get a life!

Instead of attacking Amanda, we should be celebrating her. This storm in a C-cup leaves you wondering whether some of the trolls are just enraged with jealousy. After all, how many happily married mums look that utterly fabulous?

Many women Amanda’s age have become invisible to the world. They’ve long said goodbye to their pre-baby bodies, replaced their skinny jeans with elasticised waistbands, and feel they’re no longer attractive to men, even their husbands.

And they hate it. So I imagine they’re turning the disappointment of their own lives – and bodies – into disapproval.

But instead of pillorying a woman with a sense of humour, who’s unafraid to present herself to the world in all her glorious beauty, shouldn’t we be praising her for her body positivity?

And for the fact she’s such a career survivor, an actress who carved out a new career working on TV and radio for 30 years-plus. She’s the very definition of a hard-working mother.

We women should actually be a bit in awe of her. It takes a lot of work to look that good, and I’m not referring to the surgeon’s knife or tweakment. It means hours in the gym, running, pumping weights as well as a healthy diet.

I suspect beneath much of the criticism is the fact that Holden has done so well and works so hard to maintain her figure, writes Amanda Platell 

Fellow presenter Jamie Theakston went live topless in a studio prank last year – and no one batted an eyelid

Amanda began TV presenting in her 20s on Wish You Were Here, but made her name in the hit TV drama Cutting It in the early 2000s, followed by Wild At Heart, Marple and Jonathan Creek. After suffering a stillbirth, she reported for Channel 4’s Dispatches on a programme called Exposing Hospital Heartache. She presented ITV’s This Morning and was adorable in Give A Pet A Home.

Of course, we know her best for being a judge for 17 years on the hit ITV series Britain’s Got Talent, looking more glamorous than any 53-year-old mum has a right to in extravagantly sexy outfits. Even then Amanda drew criticism if she exposed her boobs, with viewers telling her to ‘put them away’.

Her morning radio show Heart Breakfast with Theakston, starting at 6.30am, remains the biggest commercial radio show in Britain with 3.8million weekly listeners, according to the latest figures. How many 50-something women could drag themselves out of bed every morning at the crack of dawn, always looking dazzling, to entertain us and brighten up our mornings from the studio for three and a half hours?

I suspect beneath much of the criticism is the fact that Amanda has done so well and amassed an estimated £3.6million fortune on the back of her own talent.

Sure, she’s had some help along the way to enhance her good looks – she denies a facelift yet admits to having Botox and fillers – but what celebrity in the public eye hasn’t? And at least she’s honest enough to admit it.

My advice to all those women, and I fear it’s mainly women, trolling Amanda is to take a hard look at yourself as you’re sitting on the sofa in your tracksuit bottoms – and ask whether what drives you to be so mean has nothing to do with moral indignation but is just pure envy.