Amanda Holden says Ant McPartlin will be missed when Britain’s Got Talent goes live this year.
Dec Donnelly will present the live shows of Britain’s Got Talent 2018 alone, ITV confirmed last month.
It follows Ant McPartlin’s return to rehab, and Dec’s first ever solo episodes of Saturday Night Takeaway.
Ant announced in March that he was taking time off “for the foreseeable future” to seek treatment after being charged with drink driving.
Although Ant is currently appearing in the pre-recorded auditions, ITV said Dec would go it alone for the live shows “while Ant steps down from his TV commitments for now”.
They added: “We send Ant all our love. And we know that Dec will do a brilliant job.”
Speaking at the TV Baftas on Sunday night, Amanda Holden said “(Ant) will be missed but Dec will do a sterling job.”
She added to Digital Spy: “Alesha and I are on hand to help out. Mands and Dec has a good ring to it!”
Meanwhile, sources have said that Ant’s recovery is going “really well”.
An insider told the Daily Mirror: “Ant is doing really well and all of his friends think he is in a much better place.
“But this time doctors, not TV bosses, will decide.”
Ant and Dec host I’m A Celebrity as well, but no decision has been made about how that may work without Ant.
Dec’s decision to go solo was likely agonising for the double act, as they previously vowed they’d never be split up.
In their 2010 autobiography, ‘Ooh! What a Lovely Pair’, Ant wrote: “We made an agreement – whatever happened, we’d be mates forever, and neither one of us would ever be on our own out there.”
