Holly Willoughby has addressed the ‘difficult time’ that she was perceived to have fallen out with This Morning co-host Phillip Schofield.
The 40-year-old TV star was embroiled in headlines back in 2019 – that lasted for a year – suggesting she and 55-year-old Phil had suffered a major fallout and were enduring a ’toxic’ feud.
The alleged fallout is said to have begun when the pair posed for photographs for a weekend newspaper supplement magazine – only for the photos to focus on Holly rather than Phil.
Reports raged for months afterwards that the pair had suffered an epic behind-the-scenes fallout steeped in jealousy – not aided by Holly's rise to prominence following a stint as a host of I'm A Celeb in 2018 – and that the atmosphere on This Morning was tense whenever the cameras weren’t rolling.
However, Holly now claims that she failed to set the record straight at the time of the alleged arguments as she ‘knew’ she and Phil were actually friends in real life and she doesn’t care about speculation.
Holly opened up while appearing as a guest on her friend Fearne Cotton’s Happy Place podcast – with her 40-year-old ex-Radio 1 presenter friend confession she wouldn’t have been able to survive the headlines herself.
Fearne said: “I can’t deal with people having the wrong idea about me. It’s something I do a lot of work on.
“I was watching from afar when you’ve got every person in the press saying that you and Phillip are having a ‘tough time’ and meanwhile you’re great friends and there was no arguments.
“I thought I couldn’t cope with that. There’s no way. I would be going: ‘Hello! We’re best friends! Leave me alone!’ I wouldn’t cope.”
Fearne added: “I don’t have the inner strength to shut shop and go: ‘Think what you like.’ I’m not there yet. No way.”
Holly went on to confess that she did struggle with her friendship with Phil being dragged through the mud – and that she was only able to get through it because she knew what the truth to the story was.
Holly explained: “It’s a funny one, isn’t it. Don’t get me wrong, like, it is difficult. That was a particularly difficult time. Of course. For many reasons.
“But I think, and I remember having this conversation with Phil at the time, it was like: ‘But we know’.”
She explained further: “I have to believe that, that as long as you know, inside, and you know the truth, you know your truth, then everything got to be ok. It has to be. And I have to hold on to that. I can’t start questioning that.”
Fearne said: “You couldn’t confront that every day without having that coping mechanism” – prompting Holly to admit: “No. God, I’d be exhausted.”
Holly and Phil had been firm friends for 15 years before reports of the alleged feud between them began to circulate.
Phil himself confronted the accusations his relationship with Holly had become strained in a podcast in October last year.
Arguing the fact he confided the truth about his sexuality to Holly before he came out publicly was proof enough of their deep friendship.
He told Chris Evans' How to Wow Podcast: "There was nothing that was being said that had any truth in it whatsoever. There was no and there has never been a feud with Holly.
"When they’re writing 'Phillip and Holly and feud' we couldn’t have been closer because I’d told her my secret and she was holding me together at work."
