Phillip Schofield – latest: Holly Willoughby’s This Morning statement torn apart by David Baddiel
ITV presenter’s statement addressing the scandal surrounding her former co-host was ridiculed by some viewers for being ‘dramatic’
Your support helps us to tell the story
This election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.
The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.
Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.
Comedian David Baddiel has mocked Holly Willoughby’s statement about the Phillip Schofield saga on Twitter.
“When Holly Willoughby said ‘Firstly, are you OK?’ I genuinely thought she was talking to someone behind camera, before realising that of course she was talking to us,” he wrote on Twitter.
MP John Nicholson also mocked Willoughby’s opening statement from Monday’s episode of This Morning during a Culture, Media and Sport Committee taking place in Parliament on Tuesday (6 June).
The latest episode of the ITV daytime show opened with no mention of Schofield, in stark contrast to yesterday’s broadcast, which saw Willoughby give an emotional statement addressing the scandal surrounding her former co-host.
Schofield, 61, gave an interview to the BBC last week, where he described the impact of the media onslaught since he admitted to having a relationship with a much younger This Morning employee while he was still married.
Stars including Piers Morgan, Jeremy Clarkson and Rupert Everett have all questioned the intensity of the backlash against Schofield. Writing in his column over the weekend, former Top Gear star Clarkson said he was “baffled” by the uproar.
Everything we know about Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield’s ‘fall-out’
Piers Morgan defends ‘good friend’ Holly Willoughby after ‘patronising’ Phillip Schofield speech
Eamonn Holmes launches yet another attack on ‘big mouth’ Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield
‘Shaken, troubled’: Holly Willoughby’s This Morning statement in full
Yikes... an old advertisement from secondhand car company We Buy Any Car has resurfaced, bringing one Twitter user to ask: “Has a video ever aged as bad?”
In the old commercial, a voiceover begins: “At webuyanycar.com, we live by one simple rule: be more like Phillip Schofield. It might sound weird, but hear us out. By being like the most loved man in Britain, unofficially, we hope to make the whole selling a car thing nicer.”
The car company began its five-year partnership with Schofield in 2017, before it abruptly came to an end in late 2022, amid the ex-presenter’s Queuegate scandal.
However, the company confirmed that the end of his contract had nothing to do with the outrage he sparked among ITV viewers, who falsely accused him and co-host Holly Willoughby of skipping the line to see the late Queen’s coffin at her funeral.
Piers Morgan gives his take on the former This Morning presenter’s affair with a runner
WATCH: Amanda Holden mocks Holly Willoughby’s This Morning message
Phillip Schofield fears leaving home amid fallout from secret affair
In his first interview since leaving This Morning, Phillip Schofield spoke openly about the decline in his mental health since the fallout that followed coming clean about his extramarital affair at work.
In the ex-TV presenter’s first interview since he resigned from This Morning and ITV at large, Schofield said he feared getting spat on in public.
“I do not know a time I will be able to walk out of the door,” Schofield told The Sun. “I don’t have any spirit. My friends tell me, ‘It will get better’. It won’t. Not now. Not this one.”
Read more:
Former ‘This Morning’ host said he doesn’t know if he’ll ever ‘be able to walk out of the door’
The inside story of Phillip Schofield’s shocking downfall
“British light entertainment had not seen a rise and fall so dramatic since the downfall of Michael Barrymore, whose career was destroyed when a man was found dead in the swimming pool of Barrymore’s £2m mansion after a party in 2001. The circumstances are very different, but Schofield’s downward trajectory has been no less cataclysmic.”
Read the full feature here:
For more than four decades, the former ‘This Morning’ presenter was synonymous with bulletproof affability, writes Ed Power. It’s only made his cataclysmic fall from grace that much more surprising
BBC ‘eyeing up poaching Holly Willoughby’ after ITV’s Phillip Schofield scandal
While Holly Willoughby’s return to This Morning, following the controversy surrounding her former co-host Phillip Schofield, has been severely mocked by politicians and high-profile names alike, Willoughby is reportedly being eyed up for presenting opportunities by the BBC.
The Mirror is reporting that since Willoughby hosted the celebrity challenge show Freeze the Fear on BBC One last year, bosses at the rival broadcaster have been keen to poach her.
Read more:
Willoughby has been laying low since Schofield admitted to ‘unwise’ but ‘not illegal’ affair with younger colleague
MP pokes fun at Holly Willoughby’s statement on Phillip Schofield
Eamonn Holmes launches yet another attack on ‘big mouth’ Holly Willoughby
Eamonn Holmes has launched yet another attack on disgraced former This Morning presenter Phillip Schofield and his ex-co-host, Holly Willoughby.
My colleague Louis Chilton reports:
Willoughby returned to ‘This Morning’ alongside Josie Gibson on Monday 5 June
Holly Willoughby presents second broadcast since Phillip Schofield controversy
Holly Willoughby and Josie Gibson opened today’s episode with big smiles, launching straight into the news of the day, including Prince Harry arriving in court for the Mirror publisher phone-hacking trial. The show then went on to feature interviews with Sarah Beeny, who talked about her cancer journey and her new documentary, and The Repair Shop’s Suzie Fletcher, who discussed her work with leather.
There was no mention of Phillip Schofield throughout the episode’s two-and-a-half-hour run – this was in stark contrast to Monday’s episode, which opened with emotional words from Willoughby on the scandal surrounding her former co-host.
