ALISON BOSHOFF: Is Holly Willoughby’s Wylde Moon facing lunar eclipse? Accounts reveal TV golden girl’s lifestyle brand is in the red
Holly Willoughby may have the golden touch on screen – but that doesn’t seem to hold true in the business world.
Her lifestyle brand Wilde Moon has just filed its first set of accounts … and they show she has just £149 in assets. That’s enough to buy a few of her candles or three small bottles of her signature perfume The Wild.
Micro accounts show there are over £283,000 in assets but creditors are owed £310,000.
The accounts also show that “Mrs Holly Baldwin”, which is Willoughby’s married name, took a £46,000 advance from the firm in the year to October 2022.
Holly, 42, launched her Goop-style lifestyle brand in September 2021 and currently sells candles and perfumes. The perfume was launched in February this year at a fancy event at the London Palladium.
Mixed fortunes: Holly Willoughby may have the golden touch on screen – but that doesn’t seem to hold true in the business world
In the red: Her lifestyle brand Wilde Moon has just filed its first set of accounts … and they show she has just £149 in assets
Her own site shows decidedly mixed reviews for the fragrance with some disappointed customers saying it’s “absolutely awful”, “very disappointing” and noting the “cheap packaging”.
The site features beauty and style advice and a spirituality section where readers are advised on crystals, healing and auras.
The TV presenter said the idea of starting her own lifestyle brand came to her in 2018 when she was in Australia hosting I’m A Celebrity alongside Declan Donnelly. She said: “I’ve always been fascinated by the moon, space, shooting stars and looking up.
“On vacation, I spend more time on deckchairs at night than during the day.” The moon is always there – like the sun – no matter where you are in the world.’
She added: ‘I lost a part of who I was and that rediscovery brought me here, to a whole new place of beauty and power.’
She almost launched a lifestyle website with ex-boyfriend, Dragon’s Den star Peter Jones, in 2018.
Jones was left fuming after Willoughby decided she didn’t have time to commit to their new lifestyle brand Truly – just weeks before it was due to launch… with Holly as its face.
Holly said at the time: “Launching a brand requires total commitment and right now, with so many other commitments, this is not something I feel I can do without it starting to affect my family at home.”
Passion project: Holly launched her lifestyle brand Goop in September 2021 and currently sells candles and perfumes
Wellness: The site also features beauty and style advice and a spirituality section where readers are advised on crystals, healing and auras
Jones and his interior design partner Tara Kapp, 48, continued with the online store, however, and it launched in 2018.
In an interview, Capp said of Willoughby’s decision: “I’m not going to pretend. It was devastating. We were extremely close. And of course, as a business, you really feel the loss of celebrity face.’
Truli Group’s accounts, filed in April this year, make sobering reading. The company owes £1.4 million, a huge increase on the previous year, when it owed creditors £653,000. He has a net worth of just £216,000.
The notes to the accounts confirm that there is a “material uncertainty” as to whether it can continue, although it also states that creditors have “confirmed as of April 26 that they do not intend to seek repayment from the company within 12 months”. ‘
The notes also say that the so-called beneficial owner of Truly (believed to be Jones, who is worth £450m) has confirmed that he intends to provide the company with the financial support it needs “over a 12 month period”.
Jones and Kapp note that sales for the online business are up 10.7 percent in the period to April 2022, and say, “We’re excited about the new opportunities we continue to explore.
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The revelation: The TV presenter said the idea to start her own lifestyle brand came to her in 2018 when she was in Australia on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!
Moving on: Dragons Den star Peter Jones was left high in 2018 after Holly decided she didn’t have time to commit to their new lifestyle brand Truly – weeks before it was due to launch
Statement: Holly took to Instagram to make the announcement, informing her followers that she was unable to commit the necessary time to the brand
The lifestyle website was conceived by Capp and Willoughby during a family vacation together in Barbados, at the Capp-Jones Villa, when they were best friends.
Jones and Willoughby’s husband, Dan Baldwin, were also close — their relationship predated their wives — with Jones at one point holding a 40 percent investment stake in Baldwin’s television company Hungry Bear Media.
The plan for Trully was for Holly to lead the way, Tara to handle procurement and design, and Jones to be president.
The hope was that all three would earn around £10m (each) in a few years. Instead, Jones was left ‘flabbergasted’ and the friendship was left in ruins.
In 2019, Jones stepped down as director of The Hungry Bear.
Kapp said in 2020 that she and Holly were no longer friends, but added: “I will always be grateful to her because working together gave me the confidence to start my own business.”
Holly, meanwhile, also moved into the field of self-help and spirituality, writing Reflections (which one critic called “the most banal self-help book ever written”).
She ditched the agents, IMU, which she shared with Jones, and fought over a ‘sunset deal’, which would have allowed them to benefit from commercial deals made when they represented her. He is now represented by Roki Media.
Actress Gwyneth Paltrow launched the wellness and lifestyle company Goop in 2008, initially as a weekly email newsletter with advice.
It has since become a major e-commerce site selling cosmetics, food, clothing, homeware, skin care and more. The company is valued at $250 million.