Over the past 21 years Phillip Schofield has been one of the faces of ITV’s flagship morning programme This Morning.
Prior to joining the show back in 2002, Phillip, 62, had hosted programmes including Going Live!, The Movie Game, Talking Telephone Numbers and Tenball, before taking over from John Leslie.
In the years since he’s worked alongside several other presenters, however is embroiled in a ‘fall out’ with co-host Holly Willoughby, 41.
Once firm friends, the duo are now reported to be ‘barely speaking’ behind-the-scenes and that their friendship has ‘cooled.’
While Phil has insisted the pair are ‘the best of friends’ and called Holly his ‘rock’, she is yet to quash the rumours.
Phillip is not the first media figure to have a fallout with others in the industry. This includes former ITV colleagues.
Fern Britton
Fern Britton abruptly quit the program in 2009 after eight years of co-presenting with Phillip. It later emerged that tensions had existed between the two over a period of time.
Phillip claims in his book Life is What You Make It that their falling out was the result of an argument about the contents of a This Morning episode.
He wrote that ‘for whatever reason’, that was ‘the point’ where Fern, 65, decided she didn’t want to work on the show any longer.
Around the same time, Fern revealed that she left after being ‘treated pretty poorly’.
‘Something happened and I thought, “That’s it really”She recalled, “I walked out and resigned.”
‘And after a while I just thought, “Sod it”In 2020, she said on the Ray D’Arcy Program.
While Phillip said he tried to ‘make things right’ and that he missed Fern ‘deeply’, they later had a somewhat sour social media interaction after she claimed to not have been invited when the show received a Bafta for 30 years on screen.
He replied on Twitter: ‘Odd really, because she was invited and declined #memoryloss we’d have loved her to be there. A vital and much-loved part of the show.’
This week Fern also seemed to weigh in on the drama between Holly and Phillip, sharing on Twitter that she’d had a ‘catch up’ with ‘old pal’ Eamonn Holmes, who had his own public feud with Phillip.
Eamonn Holmes
From 2006 until 2021, Eamonn Holmes co-hosted This Morning Ruth Langsford, his wife on Fridays.
He has been vocal in the past when it comes to his disagreements with Phillip. This was after ITV received a complaint from his partner about Phillip’s behavior.
The 63-year-old told the Daily Mail’s Weekend magazine: ‘Phillip is renowned for snubbing people. He has a passive-aggressive style. Ruth can say what she feels, but I felt hurt for Ruth. It would not have happened to me.
He added: ‘I have a good Belfast street fighter in me… I would be direct. I do not like presenters that think they are special or have an aura of influence or privilege.
Phillip’s comments were made after Ruth was cut off by him when she finished a review for her show Loose Women on an episode This Morning.
Although it was claimed she had been cut off due to running short of time, Ruth said she ‘had about three more words to say’.
Eamonn didn’t hesitate to take aim this week after the news broke of Holly’s and Phillip’s falling out.
Speaking on his GB News programme on Monday, he said there should be a ‘special award’ for the pair for ‘best actors’.
‘He’s brought in lawyers, she’s brought in [a] The PR team. He said that the public has figured out that they don’t have chemistry.
He added, “I believe that” This Morning ‘does not depend on who presents it’.
‘It’s an institution. It will carry on no matter who presents it, and anybody can check the viewing figures. He said that it doesn’t matter who presents the show.
Ruth Langsford
Ruth Langsford had hinted at a rivalry with Phillip before, but it seemed that the feud began after this on-air conversation in December of 2019.
She reportedly made an official complaint at the time.
Phil shook his head awkwardly and wrapped his arm around Ruth the next year. This Morning The NTAs Live Magazine Show was the winner.
A show source told The Sun the whole thing was ‘staged’ following the pair’s on-going feud.
She snarled when he put his arm around her, and thanked both her and her husband Eamonn for the work they did on Friday’s show.
Ruth is not like her husband who has publicly spoken about their apparent conflict.
Amanda Holden
Amanda Holden (52 years old) was eager to host in 2018. This Morning while Holly travelled to Australia to front I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!
But it was Rochelle Humes who took over the position.
Phillip didn’t want Amanda for the part, despite her being a top contender.
On an episode of her Heart Breakfast show in 2019, Amanda joked about the things she never wanted to find in her home, listing: ‘Spiders, flies and Phillip Schofield.’
She explained that, although she sent him a text inviting them to have coffee together, he did not respond.
Speaking about hosting with Amanda in 2014, Phillip told Heat magazine: ‘She has a faulty edit button and she forgets she’s on the telly, which is enormously endearing and funny, but occasionally quite scary.’
When news of Ruth’s complaint was released, Amanda said that she ‘admired anyone who sticks up for themselves as it’s not an easy thing to do’.
She added: ‘There is a tin opener and a can somewhere, and other people have found the opener.’
Holly Willoughby
There were reports last week indicating that the two co-hosts had a strained relationship on This Morning and were ‘not as close as they once were’.
A source told The Sun that ‘behind the scenes their relationship has cooled’.
Holly and the This Morning team would ‘always be there’ for Phil, following his brother being found guilty in a sexual abuse trial.
Timothy Schofield was found guilty of sexually abusing a teenage boy over a period of three years, having been charged with 11 sexual offences involving a child between October 2016 and October 2019 – including two of sexual activity with a child.
Following the guilty verdict, Phil issued a statement and said he ‘no longer’ had a brother.
This Morning airs weekdays at 10am on ITV.
