Amanda Holden is fronting a new Netflix series that puts relationships to the test in a way reality TV hasn’t quite done before. Cheat: Unfinished Business gathers eight couples at a villa in Majorca, all of them trying to pick up the pieces after cheating rocked their relationships.
This isn’t a show about swiping right or looking for love. It’s about what happens after the damage is done, and whether anything can actually be salvaged. Teaming up with relationship expert Paul C. Brunson, known for Married at First Sight UK, Holden helps guide couples through awkward conversations, emotional exercises and confrontations that go far beyond the usual reality drama. It's raw, and sometimes, painfully honest.
Amanda knows a thing or two about public scrutiny and complicated pasts. Years ago, her own marriage ended after her affair with actor Neil Morrissey made headlines. That’s part of why she says she’s not here to judge.
“We live in a world where we’re quick to label people ‘the cheater’, ‘the victim’. But relationships are never that black and white. People make mistakes. What matters is what happens next” she said. The show is about looking at betrayal straight in the face and deciding if there’s still something left to fight for. According to Brunson, the real red flag isn’t that a couple has problems, it’s when they pretend they don’t.
Amanda admits the experience took a toll. Watching people lay themselves bare, sometimes through tears, sometimes in anger, made it impossible not to get emotionally involved. “At first I tried to hold back,” she said. “But you can’t fake your way through something like this. You feel everything with them.”
The idea of giving someone a second chance is at the heart of the series. But forgiveness, as the show makes clear, isn’t about forgetting. It’s about whether two people can move forward with new rules, on new terms, and if they’re both willing to do the work.
Cheat: Unfinished Business streams on Netflix worldwide from 30 April. For anyone who’s ever questioned whether love can survive betrayal, it promises a complicated, messy and very real look at what it takes to try again.
