Holly Willoughby has spoken candidly about her long-hidden struggles with dyslexia in a new Channel 4 documentary fronted by Jamie Oliver, revealing how the learning difficulty affected her confidence and school years.
Appearing in Jamie’s Dyslexia Revolution, which aired on Monday night, the presenter reflected on how the condition left her feeling “different” at school, despite putting in the effort.
“I definitely was terrible at spelling,” Willoughby said. “I knew that because in spelling tests I would always get poor results.
“When I got my homework back, there would be red pen all over it with ‘silly mistakes’. I felt like I was working really, really hard, but not getting much back. So I felt different.”
The documentary follows Oliver as he explores the barriers dyslexic children still face in the classroom and calls on the Government to offer greater support for pupils who don’t fit the traditional mould of academic learning.
Willoughby, who said she was diagnosed “quite late in life”, explained how the school system can disadvantage students like her.
She continued: “The school system is made for a certain type of learning, and it’s so hard when you don’t learn like that.
“When you write yourself off at school as being non-academic, that does shape your future somewhat.”
The former This Morning star has previously spoken about her dyslexia on air, telling entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson, who is also dyslexic, that she sees it as a strength, not a setback.
“I don’t see it as a disability at all,” she said in a 2022 interview. “I see it as a real feather in my cap.
“I’m very proud of being dyslexic — I think it makes me who I am.”
Branson echoed the sentiment, urging parents to see their child’s dyslexia as a potential gift.
“I was so hopeless at school work that I decided aged 15 to leave school and do the things that I was interested in, and once I started putting my dyslexic thinking brain to things that I was interested in I started to excel at them,” he shared.
“I think I was quite creative and great at getting a good group of people around me and motivating them well… and what I've realised over the years is being a dyslexic thinker is something that we should all be blessed with.”
He added: “When parents are told that their child is dyslexic, they should rejoice and tell them that they will have a little bit of a difficult time at doing some of the fundamentals at school but they should be concentrating soon after that on the things that they are good at.”
Jamie’s Dyslexia Revolution is available to stream now on channel4.com
