Piers Morgan was nowhere to be seen today but poor Susanna Reid still had to stick up for her Good Morning Britain co-star.
The opinionated presenter has been enjoying a week off, with Bill Turnbull sitting in for him, much to viewers’ delight.
But today Susanna, paired up with Ben Shephard, was forced to leap to the defence of her absent motormouth co-host after a guest accused him of ‘unhinged trolling’.
Ayesha Hazarika, who hosted Wednesday’s sustainable tourism summit attended by Prince Harry, was speaking via videolink from Scotland about the Duke of Sussex, who is carrying out his final royal duties.
She described him as relaxed but "pretty defiant" as opposed to looking like a man "wracked with anxiety".
Ayesha said: “I didn't sense, 'oh this has all been a nightmare, I'm going to hide away'.”
She continued: “I think he and his wife have a platform.
“As much as they have people who don't like him - sometimes sitting in the seats that you're occupying right now - they know that they've got a lot of people who really support them and they know that they're passionate about a lot of issues which are very generational and timely, like sustainability.
“And good on them."
Jumping to her colleague’s defence, Susanna tried to mitigate Piers’ criticism of Harry and his wife Meghan Markle.
"I think I know what you're referring to,” she said.
“I'm not sure it's about not liking them. I think if the person you're referring to was sitting here today they would say they're simply targeting what some might say was the hypocrisy, perhaps, behind some of the things that they've done.”
Susanna tried to explain her point but Ayesha interrupted her in frustration.
She cried: "Oh, Susanna, come on! It's unhinged trolling! He even trolled me yesterday."
Susanna smoothed the situation by pointing out that she would have to take that up with Piers.
Ayesha went on to defend the couple’s use of planes while speaking about sustainability.
She said: “Look, we are of a generation where we travel and we fly, we fly all over the world to see our loved ones, our friends, our families, for work.
“That is not really going to change that much. So the question is - how do we try and mitigate that?"
Good Morning Britain airs weekdays at 6am on ITV.
