Holly Willoughby has opened up about her reasons for returning to television screens after an 18-month ordeal that turned her life upside down.

The 43-year-old stepped away from the spotlight after it was revealed security guard Gavin Plumb had planned to kidnap and kill her. Plumb, 37, was jailed for a minimum of 16 years in July.

Holly had been away from the spotlight for just under a year when she made a return to the National Television Awards in September. And she returned to screens for You Bet! with Stephen Mulhern over and then .

But it was Celebrity Bear Hunt - a high-intensity show where 12 celebrities attempt to evade survivalist Bear Grylls - that marked Holly’s steps to a TV comeback. The show, which releases today (February 5), was filmed in Costa Rica last year.

Speaking to , Holly says her comeback was always going to happen, and that it was “important for me to get back to normality”. And Holly has now revealed what made her want to make the return.

She said: “I’d be an idiot if I said no. [Money’s] not the reason I make a decision.

“I’m not saying, how much are they going to pay me for this, and how much are they going to pay me for that? But by definition my work is a business. I’m not going to shy away from saying that.

“I think, sometimes, when women earn money people see it as a greedy, ambitious thing, but when men earn money? ‘Oh, he’s incredible, I want to be like him!’ I don’t have any shame in saying it’s my business, it’s my work. It’s also all I have known. It’s what I do.”

Holly says she was “really excited” about the show after it was explained by Bear. She says it also presented a chance to do “something completely new”. She added: “And, well, if you’re going to go on an adventure, go with Bear Grylls.”

Celebrity Bear Hunt will see stars such as Spice Girls singer Mel B, tennis legend Boris Becker, Inbetweeners star Joe Thomas and Ted Lasso’s Kola Bokinni dropped into the Costa Rican jungle. The stars will be “prey” for Bear, with any captured by the expert at risk of elimination.

Writing on social media, Bear, 50, described the show as “the most intense” he has ever made. The former SAS trooper has fronted a host of survivalist TV shows, starting with Born Survivor in 2006.

He climbed Mount Everest in Nepal at the age of 23, 13 months after breaking his vertebrae in a parachuting accident in Kenya. Bear’s parachute failed to open at the time, causing him to fall 16,000ft.

Celebrity Bear Hunt releases on Netflix today.