The Catholic star of Pilgrimage says the BBC television series helped get her faith back on track following doubts arising from her friendships in the LGBTQ community.
Amanda Lovett is one of seven “celebrity” pilgrims in the three-part series charting their 15-day trek across north Wales, from the shrine of Holywell to Bardsey Island.
“My faith has helped me tremendously. I lost my dad when I was 10,” Lovett told The Tablet. “I honestly feel God has a journey for us all.”
A Welsh grandmother of six, Lovett became a gay icon after appearing in 2022 in the reality show The Traitors. She was asked to open Pride marches.
“There were so many stories of people coming out and my religion didn’t bless that. I felt really torn,” Lovett said. “I thought how can I love God that doesn’t condone people’s love for one another?”
Lovett said Pilgrimage had helped her reconcile Catholicism with the stories of “courage” of LGBTQ friends.
“The Pope announcing Fiducia Supplicans was fabulous,” she said. News of the blessing emerged after filming.
She added: “I feel my faith has been re-rooted by Pilgrimage. I feel 100 per cent sure of it now.”
Taking part enabled Lovett to “let go” of the ashes of her Irish mother.
“I’ve had them for five years by my bed,” she said. “After the series, I took her ashes back to Wexford. I realised I was being selfish keeping her and feel I’ve let her go.”
Key to that decision was a vision Lovett saw on a Welsh beach. After chatting to fellow pilgrims including Spencer Matthews, one-time star of Made in Chelsea, Lovett “looked at the sky and saw a beautiful woman’s face. I thought, that’s God but he is a woman.”
Closing her eyes, she counted to 20 before looking skyward again.
“It was the most beautiful structured face in the clouds,” she said. “It might have been the Virgin Mary.”
Lovett sensed the vision telling her to let her mother go.
In the first episode, broadcast on Good Friday, Peter Brignall, the Bishop of Wrexham gave the pilgrims, who include Michaela Strachan, the Springwatch presenter, a blessing at Holywell, the shrine of St Winefride.
Pilgrimage: The Road Through North Wales, Fridays at 9pm on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer.
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