Amanda Byram's rudest interview ever

Sexy TV host Amanda Byram is back on our screens in the New Year to host a crazy new game show, Total Wipeout, alongside Richard Hammond for the BBC.

Here, she talks exclusively to FemaleFirst about why she grew tired of the LA scene, her ambition to have Ricky Gervais’ babies, and her rudest celebrity interview yet.

Total Wipeout is the widely anticipated obstacle course game show from America, which sees contestants from all walks of life battle it out through bizarre tasks and with hilarious consequences.

“It’s the world’s most ridiculous, insane and biggest obstacle course” says Amanda. “The contestants just make absolute fools of themselves. A lot of them are really cocky but can’t even get past the first obstacle”.

Total Wipeout is Amanda’s first job on returning to the UK after living in Los Angeles for five years, where she hosted top reality TV shows, Paradise Hotel and The Swan.

“Total Wipeout is so different from anything I’ve done before,” she says. “It’s like ‘It’s a Knockout’ multiplied by a thousand”.

She believes that Richard Hammond is the ideal co-host, and would like to work with him again in the future.

“There’s always going to be a star of the show,” she says. “And it’s got to be someone like Richard. He’s the favourite; people love him because he’s so cute and happy”.

Although she enjoyed watching America’s version of Total Wipeout, she began to resent working there and moved back to Britain this summer.

“There’s always a pressure towards being a certain way on American television,” she says. “I was getting a bit sick of it all. Everyone’s so nice and sycophantic all the time because they don’t appreciate sarcasm or tongue-in-cheek comedy. So I’m really looking forward to some good old British TV”.

She also enjoys the fact that Britain’s version of Total Wipeout focuses on the contestants’ personalities and backgrounds, and offers an insight into why they’re willing to put themselves through such trauma.

Some people genuinely need the £10,000 prize money, and others just want to prove that they are capable of winning the show after reaching a certain milestone age.

“It’s fun and silly, but also a heart-warming family show,” she says. “It gets funnier every day. Towards the end of each episode it gets quite intense though, and people have beaten each other by literally a second!

“As I spent so much time with these people, I usually had a fair idea who would win, but sometimes I was completely surprised if the front runner was kicked out on the first or second round”.

Amanda, from Dublin in Ireland, began her career hosting morning television show, The Big Breakfast. After leaving the show, she admits to finding it difficult to get a new job, and moved to America in search of her big break.

“After the Big Breakfast I was trying to find something that I really believed in,” she revealed. “There were a lot of offers for things that I didn’t really want to do, so that’s when I went across to the States.

“Paradise Hotel did really well, so there was a lot of interest off the back of that. My time on that show was brilliant; it was total car-crash TV and was one of my favourite jobs”.

But it’s her time on the red carpet, hosting Entertainment Tonight, which stays in the forefront of her mind. Previous to this, she had always shied away from flaunting herself in front of the cameras, for a fear of appearing in the tabloid newspapers and celebrity magazines.

“That was probably to my detriment to be honest, in terms of my career” she admits. “But on Entertainment Tonight, I was able to be a part of the red carpet scene whilst watching everybody from a distance, which was great”.

Clint Eastwood was her all-time favourite interviewee, when she met him at the Golden Globe awards.

“My Dad had brought us all up on Clint Eastwood movies, so I was in awe of this man,” she says. “Yet he was so normal and lovely; a true gentleman.

“He made sure to remember my name, and his wife was laughing because he’d insisted she wear a seatbelt, even though it meant creasing her dress!”

Dishing the dirt on who was particularly rude to her, Amanda says: “I’ll tell you who was a little bit of a rat; Chad Michael Murray from One Tree Hill. He was nasty.

“He’d just married Sophia Bush and when I wished him ‘congratulations’, he just looked so smug and said nothing. His publicist said ‘No personal questions’, so I apologised and insisted that I’d just wanted to congratulate him, and he said: ‘Did you not hear what she just said?’

“Anyway, about two or three weeks later he got divorced because he’d gone off with that other chick on set, and I just thought: ‘Well, that serves you right for being so mean to me!’”

Closer to home, Amanda’s favourite celebrity is Ricky Gervais; “I love that man and I want to have Gervais babies,” she laughs. “He’s always a great person to interview”.

Amanda plans to spend Christmas with her family in Dublin, which she expects will be a manic affair, before flying to the South of France to spend a romantic, low-key New Year’s Eve with her boyfriend.

She aims to find more work in Britain in the New Year, but says that this depends on circumstances in the industry.

“It’s an interesting time at the moment, and it all depends on who’s available for projects, such as people like Davina or Simon,” she says. “There are a lot of elements involved, so we’ll see what happens”.

“It’s just really wonderful for me to be back in the UK” she adds.

The first episode of Total Wipeout will be aired on BBC1 on Saturday 3rd January, and promises to be a barrel of British laughs from start to finish.

By Kay Taylor

Sexy TV host Amanda Byram is back on our screens in the New Year to host a crazy new game show, Total Wipeout, alongside Richard Hammond for the BBC.

Here, she talks exclusively to FemaleFirst about why she grew tired of the LA scene, her ambition to have Ricky Gervais’ babies, and her rudest celebrity interview yet.

Total Wipeout is the widely anticipated obstacle course game show from America, which sees contestants from all walks of life battle it out through bizarre tasks and with hilarious consequences.

“It’s the world’s most ridiculous, insane and biggest obstacle course” says Amanda. “The contestants just make absolute fools of themselves. A lot of them are really cocky but can’t even get past the first obstacle”.

Total Wipeout is Amanda’s first job on returning to the UK after living in Los Angeles for five years, where she hosted top reality TV shows, Paradise Hotel and The Swan.

“Total Wipeout is so different from anything I’ve done before,” she says. “It’s like ‘It’s a Knockout’ multiplied by a thousand”.

She believes that Richard Hammond is the ideal co-host, and would like to work with him again in the future.

“There’s always going to be a star of the show,” she says. “And it’s got to be someone like Richard. He’s the favourite; people love him because he’s so cute and happy”.

Although she enjoyed watching America’s version of Total Wipeout, she began to resent working there and moved back to Britain this summer.

“There’s always a pressure towards being a certain way on American television,” she says. “I was getting a bit sick of it all. Everyone’s so nice and sycophantic all the time because they don’t appreciate sarcasm or tongue-in-cheek comedy. So I’m really looking forward to some good old British TV”.

She also enjoys the fact that Britain’s version of Total Wipeout focuses on the contestants’ personalities and backgrounds, and offers an insight into why they’re willing to put themselves through such trauma.

Some people genuinely need the £10,000 prize money, and others just want to prove that they are capable of winning the show after reaching a certain milestone age.

“It’s fun and silly, but also a heart-warming family show,” she says. “It gets funnier every day. Towards the end of each episode it gets quite intense though, and people have beaten each other by literally a second!

“As I spent so much time with these people, I usually had a fair idea who would win, but sometimes I was completely surprised if the front runner was kicked out on the first or second round”.

Amanda, from Dublin in Ireland, began her career hosting morning television show, The Big Breakfast. After leaving the show, she admits to finding it difficult to get a new job, and moved to America in search of her big break.

“After the Big Breakfast I was trying to find something that I really believed in,” she revealed. “There were a lot of offers for things that I didn’t really want to do, so that’s when I went across to the States.

“Paradise Hotel did really well, so there was a lot of interest off the back of that. My time on that show was brilliant; it was total car-crash TV and was one of my favourite jobs”.

But it’s her time on the red carpet, hosting Entertainment Tonight, which stays in the forefront of her mind. Previous to this, she had always shied away from flaunting herself in front of the cameras, for a fear of appearing in the tabloid newspapers and celebrity magazines.

“That was probably to my detriment to be honest, in terms of my career” she admits. “But on Entertainment Tonight, I was able to be a part of the red carpet scene whilst watching everybody from a distance, which was great”.

Clint Eastwood was her all-time favourite interviewee, when she met him at the Golden Globe awards.

“My Dad had brought us all up on Clint Eastwood movies, so I was in awe of this man,” she says. “Yet he was so normal and lovely; a true gentleman.

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