Lorraine Kelly has revealed she is missing tonight’s National Television Awards tonight – because she doesn’t feel confident enough to attend.

The Scottish presenter, 64, receives an invite to the prestigious ceremony every year, but on her show today she admitted she finds the pressure of the red carpet event daunting.

Lorraine, whose self-titled ITV programme has been nominated previously for the Daytime awards for the NTAs, made the shock announcement to guest Holly Matthews, who was promoting her new book Find Your Confidence: The no-nonsense guide to self-belief, which is out this week.

Lorraine, who became a grandmother this month, said: “It’s the NTAs and normally I would be going to that and I would usually go. I don’t know what it is but I’m not feeling confident enough to go. That whole red carpet thing is sometimes really scary.”

Confidence coach Holly, 39, who’s appeared on Byker Grove and Casualty, said: “Yes, you have all the lights on you. And every day, men and women can feel as though they’re being watched, and that everybody is scrutinising them, and that you’re not good enough.

“But in that moment, it’s all about turning that outwards and focusing on conversations that you have with people and what’s going on around you. We’re all in our own heads worrying about our own stuff.”

Lorraine has been a regular at the NTAs in previous years. While she’s not nominated this year, fellow ITV daytime shows Loose Women and This Morning are up for the Best Daytime category. While Alison Hammond has a standout nomination for Best Presenter for her work on This Morning, she’s up against some stiff competition including Bradley Walsh and Stacey Solomon. While Ant and Dec have won the prestigious honour 21 times.
After admitting she was snubbing the ceremony tonight, Lorraine then asked Holly to give some examples of how to become more confident today. Holly replied: “Body confidence can feel like too big a leap. I like to focus on body acceptance, and that can be just accepting firstly where you’re at, focusing on what your body can do, what it has done, all of the good that your body has done. Have fun with it.

“The next thing is asking for what you want. This is something people can start today, when people are not super confident they tend to not ask for what they want.

“My litmus test is a very British example. When people are asked how do you have your cup of tea, if someone says to me ‘however it comes’, I know they accept a lot of things in their lives ‘however it comes’. Instead, be specific, what cup do you want? A nice pink or white one? How dark do you have it? Be really specific. When you do that, guess what happens? You get a lovely cup of tea.”

Lorraine added: “That’s how to get exactly what you want. And that example could apply to everything.”

Holly added: “Really embrace your weird, your unique quirks, the unique aspects of you, rather than seeing them as a negative thing.

“Sometimes in my life, from being very young, I was told I talked too much, I was too loud, too ‘this’ too ‘that’ so I developed this idea that I was too much and I needed to minimise those things – I saw it as a negative quality, something weird about me.

“The ‘worst’ things are often the best things – my ‘talks too muchness’ is why I’m sat here!”

Lorraine said: “You talk about when people compliment you in your book, and I do this – just accept it.”

Mum-of-two Holly added: “That’s a really good thing we can do today – instead of passing back the compliment and saying all the terrible things about me. Just say thank you – and that will be incredibly uncomfortable for some people.