How did a former Neighbours star go from Ramsay Street to marching through the streets of London alongside a controversial far-right UK activist with multiple criminal convictions?

The answer, if you look to Holly Valance’s previous interviews, is that “everyone starts off as a leftie and then wakes up at some point”.

The Britain-based Australian former pop star and actress has been vocal about her right-wing views in recent years and is a strong supporter of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party, so perhaps it shouldn’t have been too much of a surprise that she was among the more than 100,000 people who attended an anti-imigration rally in London at the weekend.

But not only was Valance photographed wearing a black MEGA (“Make England Great Again”) cap, she also had her arm around the organiser of the “Unite the Kingdom” rally, Tommy Robinson.

Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon, has a long history in far-right politics and is a prominent anti-immigration and anti-Islam campaigner. The de facto leader of the former English Defence League also has a string of criminal convictions, including for assault, fraud, drug possession, threatening behaviour and contempt of court.

Valance – who split from her UK billionaire property developer husband, Reform UK treasurer Nick Candy, in June – told News Corp after the anti-immigration rally that she was “very proud and pleased for Tommy”, adding, “this is his redemption”.

“How the man screaming from the rooftops about the rape and violence of white British girls, was framed as ‘the bad guy’ is going to be a case study for sociology for years to come,” Valance reportedly said.

“How weak and immoral we have become. Our silence is immoral. Yesterday (Saturday) the lions came out.”

Robinson was seen as a martyr among his followers when he was jailed in 2018 for interfering with the trial of a sexual grooming gang. His rhetoric often links Muslims with violent crime, and in 2024 he was jailed again after repeating false claims against a Syrian refugee.

Marchers at the “Unite the Kingdom” rally carried the red-and-white flag of England and the Union Jack, chanted “We want our country back” and carried signs that said things such as “Stop the boats” and “Send them home”. Multiple people were arrested as Robinson’s supporters clashed with police who were trying to keep them separated from anti-racism counter-protesters.

Valance described the rally as “a historic moment in British history”.

Holly Valance and ex-husband Nick Candy are influential in politics.

The Brisbane-born 42-year-old’s road to far-right politics has been a windy one. Many Australians will remember her as Felicity “Flick” Tully on Neighbours, a role she played as a young teenager from 1999 until 2002.

Valance moved to the UK at 19 to pursue a singing career, releasing two albums and reaching No. 1 in the charts with her single Kiss Kiss. She then relocated again, this time to Los Angeles, where she had her sights set on Hollywood. Her most high-profile movie role was in the 2008 Liam Neeson action film Taken.

She met Nick Candy at a dinner party in 2009 and her acting career largely went into hiatus after they married in a lavish Beverly Hills ceremony in 2012 and had two daughters together.

The former couple – who’ve owned luxury properties in the UK and US, including a two-level penthouse apartment in London’s Hyde Park – are influential in both UK and US politics. Valance is said to have helped raise millions for US President Donald Trump’s election campaign, and to have encouraged Farage to stand as an MP.

Candy and Valance were both photographed with Trump and Farage at the US President’s Mar-a-Lago resort in 2022.

Great dinner at Mar-a-Lago! pic.twitter.com/Qq58xMd1IG

— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) April 8, 2022

Valance earned the label “Tory poster girl” after giving an interview at the launch of former UK PM Liz Truss’s Popular Conservatism (“PopCon”) movement in early 2024, where she made clear her views about leftist politics.

“Everyone starts off as a leftie and then wakes up at some point after you start making money, working, trying to run a business, trying to buy a home and then realise what crap ideas they all are,” she told GB News. “And then you go to the right,”

She also appeared to question whether climate change was real, saying: “I just think the climate crisis or lack of, is not a crisis.

“I mean the air is better than when I was growing up. It used to stink walking down the street when I was growing up. Cleaner, cheaper energy is what we need. We’re perfectly able to get it and have it, but we’re just putting all these restrictions on normal people.”

Valance referred to her early years in another interview soon afterwards, saying “the Australia I grew up in was unreal”.

“It was so fun and we didn’t seem to have all these problems. There wasn’t all this, like… the wok stuff’s really gone big in Australia”.

At the same time she heaped praise on Trump, and referred to Greta Thunberg as a “demonic little gremlin high priestess of climatism”, seeming to hold the climate activist personally responsible for depression and anxiety among schoolchildren.

Candy, previously a Conservative Party supporter, resigned his membership at the end of last year to become treasurer of the right-wing Reform UK, describing party leader Farage as a close friend.

Valance has also switched her allegiance to Reform UK and was back in the hot seat for GB News’s political podcast in September 2024 during the party’s annual conference. Wearing green glasses and a cowboy hat – having provided the same props to interviewer Christopher “Chopper” Hope – she said she wanted to support the movement, adding: “I think it’s got amazing legs.”

When her host commented that she had come a long way since they previously spoke and she “came out as a right winger”, Valance quipped, “Now I’m just like living this far-right thug life, you know what I’m saying?”.

Asked if she was actually “far right”, the former actress became more serious: “I think that’s just a lazy attempt to slander anybody with reasonable views on incredibly dangerous levels of illegal immigration.”

Valance confirmed she had been asked to consider becoming a Reform candidate at the last UK election, but she didn’t think it was the right time.

“If at some point over the next five years that becomes more realistic then I’d revisit that but right now I’m just supporting from the sidelines.”

Farage, when asked by Hope if he would help Valance be an MP, replied: “Of course, of course. I love Holly. She’s wonderful – absolutely wonderful.”