Holly Willoughby to return to This Morning couch alongside Josie Gibson
H
olly Willoughby will return to host This Morning on Monday alongside Josie Gibson because the ITV present continues to face controversy within the wake of Phillip Schofield’s departure following his affair revelation.
Willoughby has been on a two week half-term break having taken an early vacation across the time news of her former co-host’s departure emerged and has this week been pictured on vacation in Portugal along with her household.
It was confirmed on the finish of Friday’s episode of This Morning, which was hosted by Alison Hammond and Dermot O’Leary, that Gibson will probably be filling in on the couch.
Gibson, who received the 2010 collection of Big Brother, joined the ITV present in 2019 and has co-hosted on quite a few events as a aid presenter.
It comes after Schofield stated he “didn’t tell anybody” about his affair along with his former This Morning colleague and that his ex co-host Willoughby “did not know” in a tell-all interview with BBC’s Amol Rajan.
The duo, who offered the present collectively since 2009 and in addition co-hosted ITV’s Dancing On Ice earlier than Schofield resigned from ITV, had been open about their shut friendship through the years together with occurring vacation collectively.
Schofield has been talking concerning the affair he had with a youthful male colleague for the primary time since he left the broadcaster final week.
Asked by the BBC’s Rajan whether or not he informed Willoughby, he stated: “No, oh god, no, that’s a bigger question because our make-up room was like a sanctuary so you tell everything in that room.
“Holly knows everything about me, I know everything about Holly…. Holly did not know. Nobody knew. I didn’t tell anybody.”
Asked about who on his staff knew concerning the relationship, the presenter stated: “Nobody to my knowledge. I mean somebody has to know something for there to be a rumour later on. I didn’t believe that anybody knew.”
The 61-year-old presenter apologised to Willoughby for mendacity to her about his relationship when he spoke to The Sun.
He stated: “I’ve lost my best friend. I let her (Holly) down. I let that entire show down. I let the viewers down.
“Holly did not know (about the affair) and she was one of the first texts that I sent, to say: ‘I am so, so sorry that I lied to you’.
“She didn’t reply and I understand why she didn’t reply, as well. So yeah. If anyone is in any way linking Holly to this; that is absolutely, wholly untrue.”
Schofield stated his friendship along with his former co-presenter didn’t break down following their go to to the late Queen’s lying-in-state, however after his brother, Timothy, was jailed for 12 years for sexually abusing a boy.
Speaking of the queue-skipping incident, Schofield informed The Sun: “So we are forever now (associated)… it doesn’t matter now because I’m not going to go out any more but, forever now, you go to the butcher’s and someone says, ‘Oh do you want to (skip ahead)?’ ‘No, no, I’ll stand here.’ I’m serious.
“I don’t ever throw anyone under the bus, but I have a very good instinct for these things and I knew it was a bad thing to do.”
He added: “We were texting each other backwards and forwards afterwards. I said to Holly, ‘I knew I should have gone with my gut,’ and she said, ‘I know’.
“But we were shell-shocked, the both of us, completely shell-shocked by the reaction.
“What are the two things you don’t screw up? The Queen and a queue.”
ITV’s chief government Dame Carolyn McCall had stated final yr that the pair had been “misrepresented” over the difficulty and harassed that they had been attending as members of the media to movie a phase for This Morning.