We’re used to seeing TV and radio presenter Mark Wright on our screens, but viewers will see him in a whole new light in his latest show. In A Wright Family Holiday, which starts next Thursday, Mark showed a more vulnerable side as he made some big personal revelations during a road trip around the UK with his dad, Mark Senior and brother Josh – and he tells HELLO! all about them in our exclusive interview.
"It was a bit of a therapy trip, to be honest,” says Mark, who spent two years in Los Angeles presenting on US entertainment news show Extra. “I heard from other family members that they had discussed behind my back that I’ve not been that present,” he adds. “I’ve been away working a lot and I’ve not been around to make memories enough. I just wanted to air it out and say: ‘I understand that this is how you feel if I let you down,’ and I wanted to just hear it from them that I haven’t.”
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It wasn’t only the three men the adventure had an impact on – it affected their family back home, too, including Mark’s wife of eight years, actress Michelle Keegan. “She was so happy that me, my dad and Josh got to do this together because she knows how much we mean to each other,” he says.
The six-part BBC1 series follows the trio as they try everything from skydiving in Skegness to quad biking through Northumberland and bungee jumping off Garry Bridge in Perth and Kinross. "Mark and Josh got me to do things I didn’t think I’d ever do, even when I was young,” says Mark Sr, 66.
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Josh, who married wife Hollie Kane in 2018, hopes his sons – 15-month-old Josh and baby Dustin, who is “doing well” after arriving 12 weeks early in February – will form the same close bond he has with Mark. “Even though Mark is three years older than me, I feel likewe’re the same age,” Josh tells us. “We did everything together growing up. So for my two boys to be under a year apart, I think they’re going to get that bond just as much, if not more.
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“I’m sure they’d love to do a road trip like this when they’re older. They could take me, Mark and my dad,” he adds with a laugh, before his father chips in: “If you do it again you’re gonna have to find another Mark Sr – I think I’ll be retired!”
A Wright Family Holiday starts on BBC1 on 8 June at 8pm. For the full interview, pick up HELLO! magazine, out this week.
