Danielle Nicholls, the former CITV presenter, has made a return to television after stepping away from the spotlight to prioritise her family and cope with the devastating loss of her young daughter. The 47-year-old from Manchester now co-hosts The Late Night Phone-In on Talk TV alongside Andre Walker, despite being told she was "on the wrong side of 40" to restart her broadcasting career.
Nicholls rose to fame at age 19 as the face of ITV's children's channel CITV, co-presenting daily shows and introducing programmes such as Teletubbies alongside Stephen Mulhern between 1998 and 2001. After leaving CITV, she fronted Channel 5's celebrity karaoke programme Night Fever. By 2012, she had three children with her husband Dean Holden, now assistant head coach at Hull City.
Tragedy struck in 2012 when their daughter Cici died while on holiday in Lanzarote. Cici developed meningococcal septicaemia, a bacterial infection causing blood poisoning, and passed away within three hours despite urgent medical care. Two weeks after the loss, Nicholls attended a job interview which she described as her "worst", saying: "I looked at the other kids and said to Dean 'I can't go on telly pretending I'm happy.'"
In the years following Cici's death, Nicholls and Holden welcomed two more children, Mitzi and Chase, joining siblings Joey and Ellis. Nicholls also qualified as a breastfeeding adviser to help fellow mothers. However, she admitted that during the Covid-19 lockdown in 2020, she was "in a dark place". After a conversation with her husband, she decided to pursue her happiness and return to television.
By chance, Nicholls met a former CITV colleague in London while accompanying her husband to a talkSPORT interview, which she described as "serendipity". She secured her new presenting role on Talk TV in August 2022. Reflecting on her career, she said: "People used to comment on my accent but nowadays it's gone in my favour. I do think being in TV has changed. It's much nicer this time around."
